When at my mother's mother's house I spent many happy hours reading the old books she had, there were book cases in every nook of the place - she used to go to auctions and buy boxes of old books for pennies - when she moved to a small flat the books and bookcases were burnt along with the big old furniture.

I do have just one book from the house - stories of Waterloo - which I 'borrowed' to finish reading. Many of the novels were trashy Victorian things with good little girls being mother to their siblings and the like, but there were a few really good books.

They might have been worth quite a bit now a days.

I'd have cheerfully burnt up tales of little Rosebud or Pearl, but there were quite a few military campaigns and visits to Egypt, Africa and places I had never heard of which would have looked well on my shelves. The slave taking/owning ones would not be at all pc now though.

I can almost smell them - ancient leather bindings, silk ribbon bookmarks, and edges and inner bindings with that multicolour oil on water effect.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: