Extra! Extra! The great Argyle House clear has out has concluded!

In preparation for our upcoming move to Forest Hill, WAC conducted a clear out of our storage spaces. A process that revealed a generous interpretation of the phrase “this might be useful”.

In hindsight I think the decision to leave the clear out decisions to someone newer to the department was a good one. I think most people hang onto things with thoughts of “This isn’t needed now but it might be useful again one day!” Being new to ISG, I had no emotional attachment to anything, judgements were made on the basic of logic, reason and probability. This meant I had the ability to be ruthless, and the massive boxes of VGA cables, mini display port adapters and ethernet cables were an early casualty of the clear-out.

As the cupboards of the H East were emptied, the tables at the centre of centre of the wing were laden with goodies to go to new homes. Tennis rackets, shoes, Stanley-style cups, litter pickers and many plants were all vying for new homes. I personally managed to snag a laptop rise, a can of air duster and some sweet highlighters! Despite what you might think these were all things I needed and not just more clutter that might be useful!

The weird, The wonderful, The why?

While conducting the great clear out, many strange, interesting and old things were uncovered. Here are some of my favourites.

Museum Macintosh

Possible my favourite find, his fabulous Macintosh SE FDHD (Floppy Disc High Density). Sporting a 9 inch 512 x 342 monochrome screen, 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor and a whopping 1 MB RAM, this was top of the range back in 1987. This 7.7 kg behemoth did still power up, although it was unfortunately missing its operating system. Taking a picture while it was on was quite a challenge due to its CRT display but this was such a talking point in our office and everyone wanted picture of it like it was a celebrity! It’s owner Sonia Virdi has taken it home to enjoy its retirement in comfort.

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Bygone Beverages

The amount of out of date food items hiding in pedestals was staggering. Mostly teas and coffees, (sweet treats obviously don’t last long round here!) with some even dated from before the last office move and even covid! The oldest food stuff I could find with a date was this massive box of Clipper tea bags, dated best before 01/09/2019. There were many foil packs sealed inside, so for science, Callum Kerr bravely made and drank a cup tea made with them. Turns out tea keeps very well and so the teabags were taken home by one of our colleagues! Hopefully they fulfil their purpose to become tasty tea!

Lingering Literature

A metaphorical mountain of paper work was sorted, filed and shredded. Many books found new homes or were donated to Better World Books, while Graphic Design’s portfolio was taken by the library to document and archive. I personally sorted through old printed emails, brochures, technical documentation and all sorts of oddities. Here are some of the interesting things I found.

Some outdated business cards for Stratos with the Buccleuch place office listed

A leaflet welcoming the University to Argyle House, with important building information 

 Hard earned training certificates from recent retiree Aileen Robertson, keeping us safe since 2005!

A training manual on how to use the VI text editor, copyright information dates this to around 1990

Sentimental Storage

Did someone 3D print a bunch of save icons? Nope hiding in the cupboards was a storage box with the real deal! 3.5″ floppy discs with a capacity of 1.44mb. It was great fun flipping through these as some had started life as Commodore Amiga demo discs! There was even an MS-DOS operating system disc pre Windows A real blast from the past and the first time one of our Napier placement students had ever seen a floppy disc in real life. These discs met the big magnet in the sky before being re-homed for potential up-cycling, EdWeb otter Bracket coasters anyone?

Medical Memories

Definitely my most intriguing find, these 35mm photograph slides are such a window into the past. These came from Jo Gordon from her time in the medical illustration department. Jo and her colleagues at the time posed for these slides to be used to help teach the medical students. These slides have been taken to the library for archiving.

Random Round Up

Other oddities included a random massive lightbulb,

Fernando the Blue Star Fern being transported to its new home

and who could forget about Danger Rabbit!

A Fond Farewell

So now the cupboards are empty, our bags are packed and we’re ready to go! It always feel great when you complete a big declutter like this, but it has got me thinking? Can we transform our digital spaces with a clear out in the same way we have downsized the physical space?

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I may not have worked at Argyle House long enough to develop an attachment to the building itself, I have, like many others, become attached to the businesses around us. Amazing people who have kept us fuelled, caffeinated and able to keep the wheels of WAC turning. A very fond farewell goes to Peppers, Banh-Mi Brothers and Quinn’s cafe. I will enjoy exploring the surrounding businesses of Forest Hill to find new favourites, but if anyone had ideas on where to try please let me know!

Thanks to Nick Daniels and John Wilson for the additional photos!