Do you ever buy those old books with marbled paper inside the cover, that have translucent sheets of paper to protect the colour plates or engraving? Those little rusty freckles known as 'foxing' are strewn along its pages like the liver spots on an elderly hand. It's a book that has lain unexplored perhaps for decades in a cold dank place, so that when you open it the whiff of mildewed paper catches in your nostrils.
As I pick up such a volume I wonder what secrets besides the story printed on its pages will be revealed to me. For the most satisfying discovery, I find, is a little message revealing that the book was a gift for that one ephemeral birthday inscribed with such elegance in ink, or a book plate announcing that this book was a reward for diligence in scripture or outstanding achievement in physical education.
Once upon a time the recipients of these gifts retained their anonymity. Just who was Cyril Scarborough who attended Wimbledon College in 1922? There was no accessible means to trace them before the internet.
Such was the information included inside the front cover of a purchase that I made last year from a charity shop. It was its book-plate as much as the charming illustrations of Mortimer Menpes in 'World Pictures' that piqued my interest. That school name rang a bell. Wasn't that where Paul Merton went to school? Was it possible that Cyril Scarborough was another notable pupil? And so to the search engine I turned - with interesting results.
Thanks to the labyrinthine tentacles of Google, I found that I have in my possession a book that formerly belonged to a man who having attended the Catholic Wimbledon College and receiving said book for Syntax Class, went on to become an army chaplain during WWII.
A courageous man of the cloth simply for doing that, I thought, but caught up in Dunkirk, he turned down a boat back to Blighty, feeling it his duty to stay with the soldiers who had no option but to remain where they were. He spent the rest of the war at various prison camps offering spiritual succour to prisoners and vanquished citizens, alike. This included, most notably - and most exciting for me - a spell at Colditz. Immediately the book I had bought gained an added fascination. I imagined it forlornly waiting in a silent dusty library while its owner plied his ministrations in one of the most infamous prisons of WWII.
A few years ago I bought an 1883 copy of The Boys Own Annual. Expecting a tome of ripping yarns toeing the conservative line of thought, I was somewhat surprised to find that it propounded quite liberal politics - very much lionising William Wilberforce and his anti-slavery crusade. Within its pages I was entertained by explorer narratives, seafaring tales, and detailed instructions as to how to undertake taxidermy as a rewarding pastime. But most movingly, out dropped an old letter from the Conservative Club in Aylesbury which had been used to map out chess manoeuvres by the previous owner of the book.
In my family it was compulsory to write in the front of a book that you were giving as a present. Yet, somewhere along the line I fell out of the habit. Perhaps it's because I unconsciously acknowledge that it will be heading to Oxfam once it has been read, and to daub it with a personal message will actually undermine its retail value to a potential customer attracted to an almost-pristine volume.
The desirability of a second-hand book must depend on what we seek. Are we happy to acknowledge that we are the custodians for someone else's property? For we too will quit our existence, and our books, ex libris Jane Doe, will once again be resold or donated and thus scattered to the winds of fate.
Who will be the next person to pick up my volume of 'Image Makers' and wonder who took the trouble to write 'April 28th 1987' inside the front cover, and why.
Perhaps, as they flick through the glossy pages of Hollywood idols, they will understand that it was a way to mark exactly when that special moment took place when the book I had coveted for weeks finally became more than just an item on a shelf. As I paid over my keenly hoarded pocket money it became my treasured possession and, sitting on my bookshelf still, it offers an ever-open doorway to possibilities and dreams.
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