miscellaneous treasures

[kaberett]

More items I will be bringing home with me: a Tilley hat, sent over for Papa by Uncle John (from Canada, where John emigrated and was a schoolteacher), never worn; a large wooden candlestick, turned by my great-grandmother's landlord in Feldkirchen; a small rabbit biscuit cutter. (There is more to come, of course, but I am categorically not carrying it via Belfast in hand-baggage-only.)

Treasures of the day: Grandpa B's (my great-grandfather's) correspondence and photograph albums, from his time on a cable-laying ship in the West Indies and from his time stationed on the HMS Essex.

Comments

[kaberett]

(The photo album features his mess-mates & shipmates scrawling their names down the side of each photo as I'd-like-a-copy-of-this-please, which is especially fascinating.)

[davidgillon]

I've seen a pic in a book of a photo from the launch of HMS Dreadnought that's signed by everyone from the King, through the First Sea Lord and the Director of Naval Construction and down through all of her officers, so there was definitely a tradition of signing photos as a memento.

[kaberett]

Ah, no, these were signatures scrawled down the side of the page adjacent the photos, with different sets of names by each, even all the contemporaneous ones :)

[harpers_child]

What wonderful treasures. I hope you're feeling very dragon like with such a great hoard.

[hairyears]

The early cable-laying ships were the Telstar or even the Apollo missions of their day, and the crew were fêted as heroes. When was this? Early C20 or before that?

[kaberett]

Early C20 :-)

[rainne]

You have found such really cool stuff on this adventure! I'm jealous! If I went dicking around in the attic, I wouldn't find anything more fun than more of my mother's kitchen chickens.