I usually have two or three books on the go. So I need three bookmarkers. I have nice leather ones, all of basically the same design, but souvenirs of different occasions.
The oldest is pale yellow with gold lettering and other markings, and is a souvenir of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. So it dates from my London days back in the 1980s - I'm not sure which year, but certainly sometime late in the decade. So it must be over thirty years old. Currently it marks where I've got to in a book by the late Susan Sontag titled On Photography.
The youngest is from a visit to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh in 2010. This is red with silver lettering. This one marks where I've got to in a book by Robert Twigger titled Real Men Eat Puffer Fish And 93 Other Dangerous Things To Consider - things that one might have to attempt in an emergency, such as taking control of a big aircraft and landing it, driving a tank, handling a snake, surviving in a desert, wielding an axe, doing a stand-up comedy turn, riding a dolphin, assassinating a despotic leader, escaping from a POW camp, and many other fascinating things. It's written for men, but I don't see why a girly can't benefit from knowing such highly useful stuff.
The third of these leather bookmarkers was purchased while on that Mediterranean cruise with Dad in 2009 on board the Saga Rose. It's blue with a picture of the ship, and lettering, in silver. Here it is:
And this was the Saga Rose in real life, docked at Toulon and Barcelona:
I have very positive memories of that cruise. It has so far been the only cruise I've been on. But one day, post-caravanning, I shall do some more cruising. I will probably be in my 80s by then: just the right age to most enjoy the comforts of a not-too-large cruise ship.
The Saga Rose cruise had immense significance, as it was the last big thing Dad and I did together. He died twenty days after we returned home. And this blue leather bookmarker is one of the very few tangible momentos I have of our last holiday together. I do have a lot of cruise photographs, of course; but it matters to have also something I can touch.
So I was troubled when I wanted to use this Saga Rose bookmarker, but couldn't find it in the usual place that I would have put it. I rarely mislay anything at home - everything is put away in its accustomed spot, so that I find it again instantly. I concluded at once that it must be tucked between the pages of one of my books. But which? Not any that I was currently reading, or had referred to recently.
I had taken a selection on holiday back in October, and I was pretty certain that the blue bookmaker had come with me on holiday too. But I couldn't recall which books. And I have way too many on my bookshelves to leaf through all the likely ones, and see whether the missing bookmarker could be inside.
This is where taking so many photographs can come to the rescue. I can delve into my huge archive and see whether what I'm looking for was caught on camera. I began with pictures taken inside my caravan during my last holiday. Plenty of those, but no joy. Pictures taken once home then, in my lounge. No luck. Then I remembered that I'd taken at least two shots of holiday guides, to see which kind of sharpness setting would best suit Lili (I was still fine-tuning the settings on my latest camera). Well, in my photo archive was a folder for Lili, and within that all the 'test shots' I'd taken and kept. Aha! There was the picture I had in mind. This one.
I'd already checked out the two smaller books, but not the larger one Radnorshire From Above. I knew where it was on my shelves, and opened it, and there was the missing bookmarker, which had slipped down inside and was invisible unless you happened to look carefully between the pages.
So I am reunited with a cherished bookmarker, and once again can say that having a big photo archive, with so much of my daily life recorded in it, has saved the day.
For this isn't the only occasion when I've looked into my archive to find out something - usually to answer questions such as: 'when did I buy it?' or, if clothing, 'when did I last wear it?' and if I no longer have it, 'what did it look like?'.
The 'when' questions crop up most. It might be an ornament in my lounge that I gave to Mum as a present long ago, and eventually inherited, so that I now have it back. I'm somewhat forgetful, so it's good to have the means to trace pictures from the 1970s and 1980s that show the object I'm interested in, and therefore confirm just how long it's been in the family, in one place or another.
Occasionally I see something in these old pictures that tugs at my heart. Perhaps it was something that vanished once my marriage (or my later relationship) failed, and we each took our own possessions away. It's funny how quite ordinary, mundane objects can trigger a wistful reaction so long afterwards. It makes you ponder on what went wrong, how things might have gone differently, what might have been. But the past is gone, and fixed, and can't be amended. Nor relived.
If some object in an old photo does evoke a pang of sorrow, I don't discard that picture. It has to stay. Even if it's brought to mind moments of stress, spitefulness and argument. It's important to face up to what used to be, how things actually were, and learn the lesson.
