Friday, 23 February 2007

After spending 2-3 hours on WCVS business, I left home about 11:00 am to spend the rest of the day with my Mum sorting out more of Dad’s books. We collected together a shelf of his own writings divided between poetry, children’s stories, technical studies on libraries and librarianship (including translations into Japanese and Hungarian), local history and family history.

Despite his atheist beliefs, Dad had a great passion for church architecture, and his book collection on this was donated to St Ethelreda’s in Hatfield, books on the agrarian revolution went to the Mill Green museum in Hatfield, and film star biographies will be offered to the Palace Theatre in Watford. The rest will mostly go to charity shops.

The highlight of the day was discovering a first edition of Winnie-the-Pooh. Sadly it was not in good condition – some water damage, one torn page, and my sister Caroline has drawn on many pages with a thick blue crayon. Pure vandalism, but I don’t suppose she was old enough to know better and Dad wouldn’t have minded very much.

In the evening, Jackie and I relaxed with a curry and a bottle of wine.