Professor Dickon Weir-Hughes, the new chair of the Ephemera Society.
He took over at the end of last year following Val Jackson-Harris’ 15-year tenure at the helm.
“The society has had rather a fallow period and there are now plans in place to re-invigorate it. These include a refreshed fairs offering under the leadership of John Robertson, a new website, a greater social media profile, plans for academic partnership and a push to encourage new and younger members to join the society,” he says.
As you would imagine, Weir-Hughes is an avid collector of ephemera but his primary interest is certainly niche. “My passion is specifically airline menus and on-board food and beverage-related items” he told ATG. “My focus is on ephemera as research data, rather than just as pretty pieces. In retirement from the NHS and academia I studied historical research methods at Oxford and food history at Edinburgh in order to help me get a grip on this area. A book is in the offing.”
The prize in Weir-Hughes’ collection is apparently an early Iraqi Airways Vickers Viscount menu used on flights to Vienna from Baghdad in the mid-1950s. “The route, the food and the drinks choices were all incredibly enlightening and just from one little menu,” he says. It formed the basis of an article in The Ephemerist, the society’s magazine to which Weir-Hughes is a regular contributor. More news on the society’s fairs offering is due soon.
