Victorian librarian with attitude or a ghostly presence in the Camden Museum.

Victorian librarian with attitude or a ghostly presence in the Camden Museum.

Who is the ghostly presence in the archive room at the Camden Museum.? Is it the ghostly presence of some Victorian matron who used to roam the site? Is it the ghost of some former Camden librarian who has come back in a different life?

The lady in question displays a certain attitude towards the visitors that is a bit disconcerting. She looks over your shoulder while you are busy reading some newspaper from a bygone time.

The lady makes you feel guilty that you have not contacted your long lost aunt in months. Maybe she just touches your guilt complex.

The images of the lady were taken by museum volunteer Anne who has an eye for a moving photo or two after a society meeting recently. She has made the hairs stand up on the neck of quite a few people recently.

The Camden Museum is full of objects with lots of stories to tell. An object will speak to you if take the time and patient to unlock the story of its last owner.

Where did it come from? Who owned it? What is their story? What was the object used for? When was it used? Where was it used? Who used it?

What events surround the object? What is the story linked to those events? Who attended the events?

Objects are full of stories. The stories are often hidden in plain view. You just need the patience to unlock the story.

What is the story of our lady? Where did she come from? Who is she? Why is she dressed this way? What does all this mean? What are the memories of people linked to her?

Recently I was told by a local person interested in local history that they only wanted the facts. Everything else is just fake news. What does that mean? What is a fact?

That question is simple enough.

Well is it?

Some will say the facts are in the newspaper. Well are they?

The newspaper is a second hand account of an event and the people who were at that event. The story is written by a journalist.

The journalist writes from their notes or their memories. How fixed are these details? Not as permanent as some would like.

So what are the facts? How accurate is the newspaper story.? Only as accurate as the writer remembers.

How accurate is the list of people at the event?  Only as accurate as the writer recalls. How accurate is the story of the event, what happened and in what order? Only as accurate as the writer remembers or as good as their notes. Does the writer have any biases? Yes. What are they? Lots and they affect how the journalist writes the story.

What did the writer leave out of the story? Was the newspaper story a full, accurate and fair account of the event? How do we know 100 years after the event? We do not know and the facts are not as fixed in concrete as some would think.

So the local person I spoke to who only wanted the facts really did not understand what they were dealing with. Their facts are not as fixed as they thought they were.

At any public event everyone who attends is a witness to the proceedings. If you talk to 10 people from the event the following day they will give you 10 different versions.

So what were the facts? The facts will be the things that everyone agrees on. Maybe.

Try it sometime at your next family get together. Ask different family members to recall the event. They will all have a different version.

So what is the truth? What are the facts? Are they all telling lies? Did they all forget what you remembered? Is your version the only correct version? Is your version the truth?

Are you the only one who can remembers the facts? Or is it that your version is just one version of the truth? Or is it that your version is just one version of the facts?

So is everyone telling lies? Is everyone just making it up? Does everyone just forget all the facts according to you?

Is everything else just fake news.

So what is the truth? Not so easy to answer that one.

Everyone was there and they all witnessed the same thing.

Is everyone is telling the truth?

There are lots of versions of the truth. There are just lots of versions.

Everyone saw the event through different eyes. They all have a different story of the event.

All versions are correct. They are all correct. There is no wrong version. They are different interpretations of the same event.

But they all cannot be correct.  As my local history contact told me he only wanted the facts. Everything else is just fake news.

There are lots of truths. There are lots of different views of the world. There is no black or white answer. Only shades of grey.

People like life to be simple. People like things to be right or wrong.

Life is not like that. There are all sorts of nuances to things. There is no one truth. There are lots of truths.

The lady at the museum. Who is she? What is her story? What is her history? Lots of interesting questions. So what is the truth?

Come and find out for yourself.

Find some of the truths of the Camden area by visiting the Camden Museum.

Some of the answers might surprise you.