In
the museum there are a number of card or timber boxes designed
for transporting eggs. Labels stuck to them show some of these
were send as goods in the guards van of passenger trains. It
seems likely that eggs, dairy goods and other products of Livingston
Mill Farm were sent into Edinburgh and other towns by train packed
into re-usable containers like this.
An
old farming manual explains that the essential feature of a good egg
box were:
1.
Easy packing and unpacking.
2. Safe transit.
3. Easy to clean if an egg should get broken.
The best boxes were fitted with cardboard sections, with a layer of wood wool
between each section. Renewals were cheap, and if the boxes were made of laths
of wood wool about 1 ¼ inches apart, there a great saving in carriage.
Other boxes were fitted with felt covered trays but they had a disadvantage;
they were difficult to clean if an egg happens to get broken. One of the most
important matters was that the packing material should be clean and sweet. Eggs
were very susceptible to external influences and if the straw or wood was dirty
they would be affected by it and may become tainted though quite fresh.
How
we made it
This
excellent drawing by Alexandra age 7 inspired us into developing
a storyboard, featuring an egg that leaves his mother on
the farm to travel by rail to Edinburgh, to become someone’s
breakfast. Ashley 9 and Garry 12 helped us gather a small
video clip of one of our Mill Farm cockerels crowing. We
also took several photos of black hens and chose two in
particular to animate and act as the eggs mother in the
opening scene.We gathered and edited old post cards to act
as background to our animations. One features the old Livingston
Station as it was in times gone by.Over the Easter holidays
we though we would keep it topical and ask our visitors
to ‘Draw a face on an egg’.The response was
overwhelming.Thank you to the 200+ children who created
faces for us to use in the adver.t Several, like Katie’s
(aged 10), were scanned and added to the bodies of our travelling
eggs.Unfortunately
we couldn’t use them all so only small selections
are actually featured in the advert.However all the egg
faces were on display here in the resource room for all
our visitors to admire over the Easter holidays.Also if
you click on the image you may see one of your egg faces
in the show case.Finally the vocals and background sounds
were gathered and added with the help of Alexandra (7),
Lucy (11) and Jordan aged 8.
The
railway between Livingston Station and Edinburgh was owned by the
North British Railway company
