legends · 4 min read ·
Microfilm Reader
A researcher using a local-studies microfilm reader finds her own name and address in a death notice from 1950.
**Kerrow Local Studies Library — Reader's notes (Ms. Nadia Pryor, researching the history of Mill Lane)**
*Microfilm reel 114: Kerrow Gazette, 1949–1950.*
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**Visit 1 (4 Oct).** Loaded reel 114. Wound to March 1950. Looking for a fire at the old mill. Found on 17 March, front page: *Mill fire: three feared lost.* Photocopied.
The page layout has the usual clutter: births, marriages, deaths on page 6; shipping on page 7; cinema listings on page 8. I read the small ads. Nothing useful.
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**Visit 2 (7 Oct).** Went back to the reel to check a name. Page 6, the deaths column for 18 March 1950. Among them: *PRYOR, Nadia (née Hale), aged 41. Of 9 Mill Lane. After a short illness.*
My name. My maiden name, which I stopped using at twenty-six. My address.
I assumed a relative. I photocopied it. I did not recognise the date. 18 March 1950 is seventy-six years ago.
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**Visit 3 (10 Oct).** I asked the librarian, Mr. Dunmore, to confirm. He wound the reel and read the entry. He said: "Pryor, Nadia, 41. That's quite a coincidence." I said it was my name and my address. He said, kindly: "There are only so many names in Kerrow."
He went to find a different reel. I wound forward. I looked at other deaths in the column. *HALE, Dennis, aged 38, of 11 Mill Lane. FRANE, Eleanor, aged 62, of 7 Mill Lane.* I knew them. They are my neighbours.
I looked down the whole street. Every house. Every person. Every one had an entry in the column for 18 March.
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**Visit 4 (14 Oct).** I wound the film forward to the following week. The *Gazette* for 25 March has a feature: *Mill Lane mourns.* A photograph of the street, with a long line of people in black coats walking to the church. I read the caption. Names, left to right. I read my own name in the sixth position, between Mr. Frane and Mrs. Hale.
I looked at the figure. I enlarged the print. It was a woman in a belted coat and a headscarf, head bent. Her face was in profile. It was mine.
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**Visit 5 (17 Oct).** I tried to find the reel for 1951. There isn't one. The *Gazette* ceased publication on 7 April 1950. The last issue carries a notice: *The Gazette closes with this number. The proprietors thank readers for seventy years of support.*
On the back page of that issue, in the small ads, there is a single line.
*WANTED: A reader. Apply in person to the Local Studies Library, Kerrow.*
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**Visit 6 (20 Oct).** I told Mr. Dunmore I wished to know who had given the library its microfilm. He consulted the accession book. The reels were bought in 1979 from the estate of a Mr. A. Gale, a former proprietor of the *Gazette*. The book lists reel 114 as *Gazette, 1949–1950, incomplete. Final issue missing.*
I said: "The final issue is on the reel." He said: "No. We've never had it."
I wound the reel to 7 April 1950. The page was there. I read the notice. I read the small ad. I read it again. It had changed. It no longer read *WANTED: A reader.* It read: *FOUND: A reader.*
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**Visit 7 (27 Oct).** I went to the library to ask the librarian to remove the reel. Mr. Dunmore said the reader was out of order. The film was jammed in the gate. I looked at the machine. The screen was lit. A page was on it, a news page, a cheap newsprint grey. At the top: *KERROW GAZETTE. Saturday 28 October 2026.*
I read the lead story. It was a report of a death. *Reader lost at Local Studies.* It gave my name, my age, my address. It gave the date, the time. It said I had been sitting at the machine, and was found by the librarian. It said I was holding a photocopy of a death notice.
It said: *She had been reading the page for some time.*
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**Final entry in the reader's notebook (in pencil, undated)**
I have decided not to go back. I am home. It is evening. The window of my room faces Mill Lane, and I can see the street, the old houses, the gas lamp, the people on the pavement in their dark coats. They are walking in one direction, slowly, towards the church.
I have the photocopy in my hand. I have been reading it all afternoon. It says that I have been dead since 18 March 1950, of a short illness, at 9 Mill Lane. It says that I am to be mourned by the street.
I am about to go down and join them.