Mrs. Merryman’s Collection
presented by Anne Sophie Merryman

Mrs. Merryman’s Collection
presented by Anne Sophie Merryman

“My grandmother, Anne-Marie Merryman was born in 1920 in London and died in 1980, the year I was born. Although I don’t have any memories of meeting her, I inherited two things from her, my first name, and a small wooden box. Inside the box were old postcards, which she had collected throughout her life. I’ve heard that she rarely travelled outside of England and didn’t receive these postcards herself but that she collected them for the pictures and used to look at them for hours whilst seated in her armchair. When I was growing up, my favourite thing to do was to look at the postcards and imagine my grandmother’s life, her character and her intimate thoughts.

Time has left its marks on their surfaces and each image took me to a different and unknown world. The delight of being in the realms of imagination encouraged my growing fascination with storytelling and fiction, and influenced my desire to become an actor. I still don’t know who my grandmother really was, but through her collection I feel that I can have a personal dialogue with her, even if that is only my fantasy.”

Anne Sophie Merryman