People who have physically handled large numbers of second-hand books know that 1960 was the peak year for inscriptions from parents, godparents etc to children. “To Nigel on his thirteenth birthday, from Aunt Dorothy, Easter 1962.” That type of thing.

Aunt Dorothy and Elfrida had discovered the biro. (A Platignum or Osmiroid pen with straight or italic nib was still in Nigel’s pencil-box. I was a Platignum man. Orwell in Coming up for Air: “They’re at that dreary bread-and-butter age when a kid’s mind revolves round things like rulers, pencil-boxes, and who got top marks in French.” That was a pre-teenage state of affairs.)

Biro is an obsolescent word, but was then the word for ballpoint pen. Aunt Dorothy reached for hers when she would have hesitated to make a mess by using Quink. (Though Nigel’s other present might have been a Parker.) Later, she decided that biro writing did not look very nice in books.

Elfrida Tenterden, Google informs us, is the Hon Gwen Elfrida Penelope Abbott, daughter of Elfrida Charlotte (née Turner), Lady Tenterden. Why isn’t she using her married name of Fisher?

Naïve question: why does one need to control a place to trade with it?

David

3,000 years of Chinese territorial history in 150 words.

Why this template doesn’t support gif animation is a mystery.

Vierne wrote six organ symphonies to Widor’s ten.