Books and the History they hold

I love second hand books. This is not the Yorkshireman in me being particular fond of a bargain – of course I am, but that’s not the real reason. I love to think about the history of the book – how it’s been loved and cherished and the various hands it might have been through. I also look for the books with inscriptions “To X with Love” etc. which signify something of the background to the book.

One specific example of this (and I have a small number of my own) is the school prize book (do they still do that now?). Two of my own I remember (which are lingering at my parents somewhere) were ‘Legend of the Stars’ – a book about star constellations and the associated legends and a “Diary of Yesterdays’ – famous incidents on every day of the calendar year from past times.

So I was especially intrigued when I found this in one of my various boxes:

Uncle Tom's Cabin c 1904

It’s one of my older books – coming in at 110 years old and certainly looks like it might have been a rather grand book in its day (the picture not doing the contours and colouring any justice) but it’s not the age, per se, which intrigues me. It’s the certificate on the inside:

City of Leeds Education Committee – School Prize for attendance and Good Conduct to ... is it Mabel Hammond, possibly Isabel or Anabel but I’m erring towards Mabel.

I’m plagued by many questions...

Was this a school specific prize or a city wide prize? How many such prizes were given out – as above the book looks like it might have been a good one and I don’t suppose the average everyman would have been reading this book in 1904.

What about Mabel – how old was she, was she receiving what might seem to be a good education, given her age would she more likely have been married with children by the onset of world war 1 rather than forging a working life (or both) – if married did her family survive the war? My own Great Grandfather would also have been a child in 1904  -he lost his life one week after joining the war in 1917 having seen around 1500 of his ‘Bradford Pals’ colleagues die on the first morning of battle.

This is not a book I want to put on ebay or particularly give away to a random stranger. What I’d really like to do is find out about Mabel, find out about her family and find a descendant to hand this piece of family history over to wherever they may be. Other than paying the likes of Ancestry.co.uk I don’t really have the faintest idea where to start, but I have a desire to do it. Where is the ‘Who do you think you are’ team when you need them?

All help and suggestions warmly welcomed

A Trip Down Memory Lane

• Book: The Football Grounds of England and Wales
• Miles Travelled: 13
• Trip Lowlight: Delivering the book to completely the wrong street

The previous delivery provided a trip down memory lane (or memory track?) and this one had a tangential trip down memory lane of its own.

After a previous book on the History of the FA was claimed I received an email from Sue whose 70+ yr old father suffered from Dementia. He had been a long time football fan and the book would have provided (provoked?) some memories of days gone by… I knew I had to do something, so I advised I’d find something appropriate.

Age does funny things to us in terms of memory, we all get affected by short term memory loss – we can keep it relatively agile through various techniques but in those with Dementia short term memory loss is a permanent feature. Short term memory stores all those things happening to and around us, it takes things in, filters it and decides what should flow through into long term memory which in itself is divided (simplistically) into event based memory – dates, things that happened etc. and more functional memory – the things we don’t even consciously think about – riding a bike, boiling an egg and such like. In the later stages of dementia, these longer term memories start to be affected and our need for care increases.

Long term memory is a powerful thing – we can probably all think of a song that evokes our first love and brings to mind, sounds, sights, smells. Caring appropriately for memory in those with Dementia can really improve quality of life. So as a football fan, Sue’s father might not be able to remember the current manager of Aston Villa¹, or who plays at the Keepmoat Stadium², but could probably reel off the starting 11 from the 1966 world cup final or in my case it would be the Leeds Untied FA cup winning team of 1972³ (despite being an infant at the time).

Burnden Park c/o www.boltonmuseums.org.uk 

So this book was perfect – The Football Grounds of England & Wales, but before Keepmoat, Ricoh, DW, Emirates et al provided some of the money which built spanking new stadiums of seemingly opulent luxury (if the ticket prices are anything to go by). The book was printed in the mid 80s so there aren’t any behemoth Premier League stadia in there… Roker Park, not Stadium of Light, Burnden Park not the Reebok Stadium .. well you get the picture. My hope is that upon receiving the book ,  the memories of standing on a freezing cold terrace on New Years Day with a cup of Bovril and a Meat Pie of questionable provenance came flooding back and a smile arose at the thought of George Best dancing down the wing as various ruggedly built defenders tried to decapitate him.

I don’t know whether it was irony or sod’s law or something else, but I printed off a map for the house and because I kind of knew where it was I didn’t really refer to it again. As I turned into what I thought was the appropriate road (no signs) I knew this wasn’t quite right… which I found out after posting it and then cycling past the right road … happily I had labelled the pack so book was eventually happily received ….

1.        Still Paul Lambert at the time of posting but hanging on.

2.        Doncaster Rovers

3.        Harvey, Reaney, Madeley, Hunter, Charlton, Bremner, Giles, Lorimer, Gray, Clarke, Jones

ASIDE: I’ve changed my donation rule – I’ll be donating 5p per mile on top of the £1 per book which makes a 40 mile round trip a £3 donation instead of £1.40 which seems more proportionate.

Freecycling Through West Sale

Winter commuter bike now with added luggage.

• Book: England: The official F.A. History
• Miles Travelled: 12 – a small diversion to my usual commute
• Source of Take: Freecycle

About 6 years ago I found myself working in an environmental charity in London. Career wise it was an unusual diversion but was a logical extension to something which started with attending Greenpeace meetings in a room above a pub in Leicester whilst studying at Leicester Polytechnic. Among the many things I learned whilst working for the charity was the burgeoning number of groups trying desperately to encourage and help people to reduce, reuse and recycle. I joined and have continued to use Freecycle, mainly in a giving capacity – I loathe the idea of throwing stuff away that still has life in it and that’s the very essence of Freecycle – you have no more need of something, it still does what it says on the tin, you advertise it and someone local takes it off you… Simples. I’ve given away all sorts from books to beds over those years and so it seemed apposite that I should use that source to get me going (I expect Social Media to take a while to kick in with generating books requests.)

I duly posted an OFFER, detailing my librarything account and letting people know they could choose their own book and then …. I had a post rejected email. Mr/Ms Moderator was claiming my post was a service… I have to admit I temporarily lost my shit but remained composed enough to send a vaguely sensible reply. Its here I have to give credit to the moderators who I expect spend a lot of their own time doing this for no measurable reward. We had a back and forth where the rules were explained and I elaborated on what I was doing and we reached a compromise where I decided to (regularly) list individual books.

An official history up to and including Euro 96

I listed the book above and a Star Wars book (no takers) and had a couple of responses for the England book in fairly short order. It just so happened that it was about a half mile diversion from my usual commute (I’ll come to that later) so was a good chance to strap on my newly delivered Rack and Panniers (thank you Santa Claus) and cycle into work to head some things off at the pass ahead of my ‘full’ return to work after a New Year break.

So, the long and short of it is, I have book 2 delivered and have notched up my first 12 miles cycling with a rack and panniers – blessed relief from a heavy rucksack to be honest. Now I’m away to put a couple more books on Freecycle.