Warm up
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- What industry do you work in and what is your role?
- What are your responses in your role / position?
- Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
- How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
- What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
- How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
- What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?
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- Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
- Anything of interest happening?
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1. Two “stolen” notebooks written by Charles Darwin have been mysteriously returned to Cambridge University, 22 years after they were last seen. The small leather-bound books are worth many millions of pounds and include the scientist’s “tree of life” sketch.
2. Their return comes 15 months after the BBC first highlighted they had gone missing and the library launched a worldwide appeal to find them. “I feel joyous,” the university’s librarian Dr Jessica Gardner says. She grins broadly as she breaks the news. In fact, she cannot stop smiling. “They’re safe, they’re in good condition, they’re home.”
The pink gift bag, envelope and box that the notebooks were returned in
3. But who returned the two postcard-sized notepads is a real whodunit. They were left anonymously in a bright pink gift bag containing the original blue box the notebooks were kept in and a plain brown envelope. On it was printed a short message: “Librarian, Happy Easter X.”
Why do you think these notebooks were stolen? Why do you think they were returned?
4. Inside were the two notebooks, wrapped tightly in cling film. The package had been left on the floor, in a public part of the library with no CCTV, outside Dr Gardner’s office. “I was shaking,” says Dr Gardner of her reaction to seeing the bag and its contents for the first time on 9 March. “But I was also cautious because until we could unwrap them, you can’t be 100% sure.”
5. An agonising delay of five days followed between finding the package and the police granting permission to open the cling film, examine the notebooks and confirm they were genuine. “There have been tears,” says Dr Gardner sheepishly. “And I think there still will be, because we are not over the emotional rollercoaster. It means so much to us to have these home.”
6. She admits she had feared the notebooks would not be returned in her lifetime. “I thought it might take years. My sense of relief at the notebooks’ safe return is profound and almost impossible to adequately express. “I was heartbroken to learn of their loss and my joy at their return is immense.”
Have you ever had something stolen from you? What was it? How did you try to get it back? In the
end, did you get it back?
7. The manuscripts were last seen in November 2000 after “an internal request” to remove them from the library’s special collections strongroom to be photographed. It was only during a routine check two months later that they were found to be missing. Initially, librarians thought they had been put back in the wrong place in the vast university library, which contains more than 10 million books, maps and manuscripts.
8. But despite various searches, the notebooks never turned up, and in 2020 Dr Gardner concluded they had probably been stolen. She called in the police and informed Interpol. She says “I do wonder where they have been. They haven’t been handled much, they’ve clearly been looked after with care, wherever they have been.”
9. “I think what we can probably surmise is they’ve been dry, they haven’t been subject to damp. So what can we speculate, other than that whoever had them, put them in a safe place?” The notebooks are now being kept in a secure strongroom at the library. But so many intriguing questions remain. Who took the notebooks? And who returned them?
What is something you want to be preserved and put in a museum eventually? Why do you want this to be put in a museum?
Phonetic Chart
