We got up and headed out to the Type Archive today, meeting Duncan Avery and Gerry Drayton as they arrived, chatting with them over tea. Got straight to work with Gerry, who went over the basics of starting up and running the composition casters. After lunch I took apart a type mould, cleaned it and put it back together again and reinstalled it back on the caster. It was having trouble with casting a burr on the side, and after I cleaned it and put it back together, the burr, successfully, was gone. Gahlord took notes, photos of Gerry and I working, and observed all. Gerry Drayton, who was my teacher in 1985 at the official Monotype School in Salfords, Surry, when Dan Carr and I attended, is in his 80’s now and should be considered a National Treasure for his knowledge on the Monotype caster. We then met Susan Shaw, who skillfully orchestrates the working of the Type Archive, along with Duncan Avery who showed us some of the Monotype machinery, the matrix making department, and the stores of old foundry matrices from many historic foundries. In the evening we visited James Mosley, an incredible type historian and his lady Gillian Riley, a food historian and typographer, for dinner at their place. We spent the evening with enjoyable discussions of type related subjects, looking at type specimens, and looking at a sweet book on food history by Giacomo Castelvetro, translated by Gillian.
I felt very lucky to enjoy some time with such lovely, amazing people.