SCRAPBOOKS

Memory tag: On finding my old scrapbook and its picture postcard of the famous Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo in the early 1960s.

Dear Readers,
I wonder if you often find childhood pleasures resurfacing without warning. All they seem to need is a tiny reminder which within an instant can sweep away decades of dust! I remember an impossibly large cupboard, entirely made of beautiful dark rose wood. At the bottom of this were three equally large and cavernous drawers, the last of which was given to me as my private treasure trove. Into it went all my cherished worldly possessions: treasured, precious, bent, battered stored with curators zeal! Among the paraphernalia were scissors, gum, cello tape and a collectors ransom worth of cut outs from any available source. They were my scrapbook stock! This is an item I miss in the stationary stores today. Their glitzy shelves seemed to have outlawed the good old fashioned scrapbook! Not that kids have changed. No school desk worth its name is likely to be without its notebook turned scrapbook. Properly stocked they become objects of owners pride and neighbors envy definitely worth fighting over!

Only one of my many scrapbooks has survived to tell the tale. It tumbled out of a trunk I was determined to set right! This one is full of old picture post cards collected by my parents in their various globetrotting jaunts. Some sepia, some in old technicolor, show casing places that have metamorphosed beyond their original incarnation. One postcard was a particularly evocative of the famous Shepheard Hotel in Cairo in the early 1960s. It was founded in 1841, on a site which 1000 years ago belonged to royal palaces. In modern times it had been the HQ’s of Napoleon's forces and not unnaturally became the rendezvous of personalities of international fame, prominent allied officers, politicians and spies during World War II! Rebuilt after being burnt down in1952, its situation on the banks of the Nile give the restaurants and bars a breathtaking view of the Nile! It is definitely on my list of must visit!

Today, a long, long time later, I am once again moved to start a scrap book. At that time plants and animals, the Apollo Missions, and natural history filled my scrap books. This time it will be more a far more eclectic mix of all that catches my imagination. Many a time it is the beauty of a face or idea in an advertisement, sometimes its line in a conversation, an image captured on camera, a poem in haiku, maybe even an incident and of course my first love, natural history.

Scrap books came in all sizes, shapes and guises. I remember once talking a printing press owner into binding bundles of unprinted pages into a thick book to be filled up at will. Another time, I came home with rolls of handcrafted chart papers and got a scrapbook fashion in the style of old palm leaf manuscripts and then had to raid my mother’s sewing box for ribbons to tie them together ! All these in addition to the various deeply thought out petitions I had to make to my long suffering father ( who acted as my pocket money treasurer) to buy the latest version of scrapbooks in the market. He not only gave in gracefully after the mandatory, ‘lets see’, but added immensely to my interest and collection. I remember spending many a afternoon or evening pouring over Apollo moon landing news, gazing awestruck at the photos of comet Kohoutek with him. He was an avid scrap collector himself and we could always bet on a little tropical storm when he would inevitably want the months collection of newspapers my house proud mother had just stored away. This, after she had repeatedly asked him if he had finished with them! I seem to owe my interest to both nature and nurture. Whatever the source, I wanted to share the rekindling an old flame, that gave me so much joy in the past and is once again part of my today and tomorrow, with you, my dear Readers.