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The Waverley Gazette

‘Waverley Scotland Tartan Commonplace Notebooks’ and ‘The Robert Burns Connection’. It’s a love affair… By Ron Grosset, founder of Waverley Books, and Geddes & Grosset

Love, notebooks, tartan and Burns - it's a love affair

'Social media' as such is not a new phenomenon. Notebooks or ‘commonplace books’ of centuries ago were like today’s Facebook and Instagram, Tik Tok, Tumblr and Pinterest. Commonplacing was and is about remembering, writing, reading and sharing.

21st century Twitter, blogs and our world of social media hark back to a tradition of sharing of personal thoughts and writing. A tradition that is hundreds of years old.

Cabernets and Merlots

Here at Waverley Books, we’ll have been journaling and sketchbooking between us for the last 30 years or so. It's more than that, but let's call it 30. Piles of notebooks are filled, and then filed – some neatly, others randomly, each of which record thoughts and plans and good intentions. Some notebooks are hastily scribbled. Other notebooks have more considered ramblings. Sketches, bits and pieces stapled or taped in place. Currency rates clipped from newspapers, and stuck in, are alongside notes about Cabernets and Merlots and big Italian wines with now crumbling dried-up Post-Its struggling to stay in place. The pencil notes are hard to decipher now; the softness of the marks on the page seem faded, but the record is there still.

Some notebooks are ruled. Some are blank, some squared. Their ribbons are frayed. Some have bindings that failed, held for life now with elastic bands. Business cards – and long-lost receipts, unclaimed or undeclared, are found in the pocket at the back. There are punchlines written – but they lack the joke. Phone numbers without names attached and sizes of things in centimetres – and prices, with drawings, and scorings-out, ticks and crosses of jobs done and not.

It only took us 25 years of running this publishing business (or so) to figure out that we should put something of our experience together as book publishers and journalers and create something special.

Commonplacing

The trigger behind Waverley Scotland’s notebooks was none other than Robert Burns. Robert Burns kept journals and notebooks and practiced, as it was in his time, ‘commonplacing’.

‘Commonplacing’– is what is called ‘journaling’ these days. Journaling is nothing new. 'Mindfulness' is perhaps a new word for what Burns did, wandering along the banks of the River Ayr and focusing on a poem that may become a masterpiece in a day or so (in 1790). It's a new word for living in the present and being present so you can notice the trees and water in such a way you are taken out of your current thought process and lifted clear. Using a notebook or journals to record that present moment is an established traditional method. Commonplacing for mental health? Commonplacing for filing? Commonplacing ideas.... Commonplacing for anxiety? Commonplacing for beginners. Commonplacing ideas.

We were working on a book: ‘Robert Burns in Edinburgh’. It was an interesting idea - just why were the years Burns spent in Edinburgh so vital to the development of his life as a poet and writer? It was not authored by Burns scholars or academics but put together by three Burns-curious Glaswegians. Checking roots and sources took us to Robert Burns’ ‘Commonplace Notebooks’ – which can be seen today at the Burns’ Museum in Alloway.

A new idea

Meanwhile, Waverley publisher Liz Small took a call at the Waverley office – in the early months of 2013 – from Deirdre Kinloch Anderson.

Scots everywhere know the name and company ‘Kinloch Anderson’. The company is over 150 years old, is based in Edinburgh and holds Royal warrants to supply Tartan and Highland Dress to HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Prince of Wales.

Kinloch Anderson wanted a corporate history published in an illustrated book – and we took the task on which became A Scottish Tradition. A follow up history recently followed in Tailored for Scotland (published in 2020).

Just as with Robert Burns in Edinburgh, the publishing responsibility required us to become immersed in tartan, its history, development and importance.

It's all in the binding

It was that experience that caused us to wonder why had no one produced journals, or notebooks bound in genuine British tartan cloth? A wee bit of Scottish heritage and culture in your pocket – as a journal, or notebook.

We soon found out why. Genuine tartan cloth is what it is. Cloth. It is woven and because it is cloth, it stretches – nigh on impossible to use for book or journal binding which by its very nature stresses the cloth in every direction.

McGonagall and Kolkata

Some years previously, we had published a book 'The Comic Legend Of William McGonagall'. We thought it would be a great idea to bind it in jute to make the connection between the world’s worst poet, McGonagall and Dundee, the home of jute. Spike Milligan was a big fan of McGonagall. As were we. But as we keep finding out, what seem to be great ideas at the time often bring great problems. However, we managed, and published the first book ever, bound in jute.

I read from this volume to a full house in a theatre at the Kolkata Bookfair in 2007 (organized by The British Council) – McGonagall’s The Tay Bridge Disaster and I was astonished that the Bengali audience joined in with every chorus:

"On the last Sabbath day of 1879,

Which will be remember’d for a very long time."

Turns out that McGonagall was taught in Bengali schools as ‘how not to write poetry’ by teachers trained in Scotland at Moray House, Edinburgh. I presented my copy to the Mayor of Kolkata, who I imagine still recites from it daily.

So now, we had two great poets to be inspired by: Burns and McGonagall. We were inspired. We then embarked upon a bit of R&D with some trusted partners and we created Waverley Scotland Tartan Cloth Notebooks, bound in genuine British tartan cloth, woven with the authority of Kinloch Anderson Scotland.

Auld Lang Syne and A Red, Red Rose

Launched early in 2016, Waverley Scotland now have journals / notebooks in 48 tartans in 80 plus versions, including some which celebrate Scottish songs with Burns connections. The songs include A Red, Red Rose, bound in genuine Burns Check, and Auld Lang Syne in the tartan of that name. The paper we use is FSC and the boards are made from recycled board.

The quality of these Waverley Commonplace Notebooks is inspiring journalers across the world, who are ‘commonplacing’.

The inspiring thing about a new journal or notebook is the sheer quality and beauty of the blank object. Rather like being given a new ‘jotter’ or notebook at school, it is the newness that initially inspires all sorts of things. Neatness (to begin perhaps), but the journaler is not writing homework – today’s journaler is doing one or more of many things.

Creating space - Walter Scott and Robert Burns

What we at Waverley Scotland provide is space – and space bound in genuine tartan cloth. That space itself inspires, and with colourful quality tartan, there are notes by Walter Scott and Robert Burns that show they wrote in their notebooks exactly the same way as we do today, together with the obvious connections with the culture and history of Scotland and the Scots.

At Waverley Scotland, we chose the name Commonplace Notebooks because we thought it captured the art of journaling well.

Each of our Commonplace Notebooks comes with a bookmark which explains the background to the tartan used for the binding, and enclosed is a leaflet – ‘The Story of Tartan’ – translated into many languages.

A wee bit of Scotland

Each one is a wee bit of Scotland. Even if that doesn’t invoke passion, interest or emotion, hopefully the notebook itself will stimulate you to set down your thoughts, whether it is a rant, expense, diary, poem, novel or recipe.

You can choose a different tartan next time, so that you have a visual recollection of what you wrote when. And colour inspires.

There are so many benefits to commonplacing:

* Writing stuff down helps you to deal with stress and intrusive thoughts effectively.

* A list of those seemingly impossible tasks that form a mountain, put in order, breaks the insurmountable, into Munros, and Corbetts, which can be tackled one by one and you can transform the impossible.

* The very act of breaking down that mountain Increases creativity and calms anxiety.

* Listing tasks and ticking them off brings mental clarity and a confidence with problem-solving skills.

* Simply writing things down Increases your self-awareness and self-understanding and generally just simply keeps things in perspective.

* It is well-being : helping emotional, mental and physical aspects of your life.

* Your ability to communicate with others will improve.

* Watch a pattern in your thoughts and worries – take action to resolve or solve them.

* But the most important of all – commonplacing in a genuine woven tartan cloth notebook increases happiness.

* And maybe reminds you of your favourite place.

* Perhaps it is the source of the threads, the traditional dyeing process, the weaving itself - the history of tartan attached to the design.

Beauty

Each Waverley Tartan Cloth Commonplace Notebook has beauty and history – each tartan is an inspiration with a story to tell to encourage you to tell yours.

What will you write, or draw, today?

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