An Edinburgh violin shop made the discovery of a lifetime when they found a message from more than 100 years ago hidden inside an instrument.
The message is the length of a small essay, and it was tucked inside an unusually designed, locally made instrument. The message was hidden from the world until Tim and Helen Wright, the co-directors of Tim Wright’s Fine Violins in Marchmont, brought it to light.
“Before the maker closed and finished the violin, he put a huge amount of writing inside, which is really unusual,” said Tim.
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“Most of the time, if you find any writing inside of an instrument it will be a little signature or a little brand or a tag saying it was repaired by so and so. It is really, really unusual to find so much writing. The subject matter, about how difficult life was during the First World War, is also really surprising.”
The Wright’s had no idea that they would find anything unusual when they purchased the unusually shaped West Lothian instrument a few months ago.
They were originally interested in the instrument because it was an experimental design by Bathgate’s William Sommerville in 1916.
“It's a really quirky looking violin,” Helen said.
“It's an experimental model where the back is a little bit bigger than the front. So he writes that he was trying an experiment based on the violins made by someone in Portobello at the time, and he wrote that this is his first and last attempt at this experiment because he doesn't like it.”
The unique shape of the instrument lent itself well to lots of writing, and the mysterious William Sommerville grabbed his pen over a hundred years ago to write his secret message.
“We are living in very evolving times of war,” William began, writing in a beautiful and now hard to decipher hand.
“Someone will see the inside of this violin some day and wonder what kind of a crazed [...] made this…” he later continued.
William wrote his message directly on the soft wood of the violin in pencil. Although the writing is still sharp and clear, the message is hard for modern readers to understand.
“The handwriting is really tricky,” Tim said.
“We really struggled to transcribe the message. My mother-in-law is in the highlands, had a look at it and said, ‘Oh, that's good, old fashioned Scottish handwriting.’”
Tim and Helen summarised what they could of the message.
They concluded that William was obviously very troubled by the state of the world during the First World War and wrote a message for whoever should find the violin in the future.
“It was really nice to sort of have a glimpse into his world somehow. You know, it really felt a bit like time travel,” Tim said.
“One of the things he wrote is basically to whoever finds this message in a hundred years. He pretty much says, ‘you’ll think I’m crazy, but here’s why I made the violin like this.’ That was pretty cool because that’s pretty much when we’ve found the message - a hundred years later.”
The secret message also reveals the exact cottage on Bathgate’s Mill Road where the violin was made.
Helen explained that not much is known about William Sommerville. They know he made upwards of 60 violins and can conclude he was probably a professional maker, but they know nothing else about his life.
The couple repaired another violin from William Sommerville last year, but found nothing unusual in that model.
“I think it was a one off thing probably by the stress of the time he was living in,” Helen said.
The Wright’s have owned their independent violin dealership in Marchmont for the past five years, and they are both former professional musicians. However, it is the first time they have ever found something like Sommerville’s essay.
In addition to matching musicians with their perfect instrument, the Wright’s also acquire and repair instruments, such as the Sommerville violin.
Wright’s Fine Violin’s is currently undergoing an expansion. Helen said the main shop is expanding just around the corner into a bigger space.
“We got this shop just around the corner from our current one that’s much bigger and we’re currently doing it up. That will operate as our big shop with two nice trial rooms, and we can open a workshop for repairs in our current premises,” Helen said.
The new shop is expected to open in about a fortnight.
More about Wright’s Fine Violin’s here.
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