A key to understand the VMS

[-JKP-]

Sam G & Thomas Coon,
I agree with your observations regarding q.
The rarity of q in the labels and its absence as paragraph initial (but not as page initial) is the reason why I wonder whether q might stand for an ampersand, attached to the word which follows it.

Yes, it might. Some thoughts I had on the q...

• It was pretty standard to connect et/ampersand to the following word in many languages and one of the shapes for it was a "7", which is not unlike the VMS shape.
  
• It may be something like quod/the/that or whatever is used as an article in its associated language, but not quite as generic as "the" in English, possibly more definite (like "that") to create emphasis. "Quod" was often abbreviated as "q" and some scribes wrote "q" with a pointy loop that looks very much like the VMS q (I have samples).
  
• It may be a marker, perhaps one that says, "The following/attached word is a name".
  
• If the spaces are contrived and there are nulls, it may be a "q" or any other letter.