In the Spring of 2021, The Lost Letters Project put out a call for words and artworks responding to the ideas of sleepless nights and nocturnal offerings. This site is a curated collection of these creative responses.
What stirs you from slumber
or reaches you in hazy
moonlit interludes?
What swims in your psyche after dark
that must be expressed?
What are you called to say, with urgency, at 3am?
The 3am Project is part of Lost Letters, an arts and heritage project from ‘It’s Not Your Birthday But…’
The Lost Letters Project uses the arts to make contemporary creative connections to the past through old letters from the archives at Surrey History Centre.
Works on this site respond to ideas and themes that arise in the middle of the night, therefore much of this work reflects the darkness of this hour.
If you find these works upsetting, are experiencing distress or need some emotional support, click here...
The 3am Project is inspired by a letter, penned in 1939, by a man called Frank.
At 3am on 14th July 1939, after an ambiguous encounter, Frank Baker wrote a restless and conflicted letter to his love Isabel.
Dearest Isabel
You will see from the date I have given above that I have not been able to get to sleep partly because it is hot, partly because the events of this evening left me feeling rather excited, but chiefly because of you mi querida.
I am rather slow in understanding evidently. We said “Good night” quite pleasantly to each other when I left you, but I could not help feeling something was wrong with me after I had gone.
It struck me what it was when I reached my digs – you were quite pleasant Isabel, but in the same way as a clay model might be – I realised there was something wrong then....
My first idea was to take no notice and let you do what you like, but I feel I can’t do that. Then I made up my mind to write...
You can read Frank’s Letter in full here
Frank Baker’s 1939 letter was discovered nestled amongst a disordered collection of papers at his former home in Dorking.
Frank was a teacher who became a peace activist after serving in WW2. Letters and papers revealing fragments of Frank & Isabel’s lives are stored in the archives at Surrey History Centre.
Surrey History Centre collects and takes care of stories from Surrey's past and present. They keep millions of old letters and documents safe in their archives in Woking.
They have over 6 miles of shelves, with enough documents to fill more than 9 double decker buses!
Anyone can visit and request to see original documents from their archives.
What will you find at Surrey History Centre?
Get a flavour of what’s inside the archives in this short film by 7000 Trees