This particular copy came to us via Norfolk County Library, sold off in some long ago cull, but it is very like a treasure of my boyhood, or at least that part of it when I was keen on boats. Observer's Books were treasured because they were at the top end of what could be saved up for from pocket money, were collectible, were small and were lavishly - by the standards of the day - illustrated. With colour illustrations - eight pages of flags & funnels - being separately bound into the middle of the book. There was a time when I knew the alphabet in flags and could have spelled out the famous Trafalgar message, although I did not know then and do not know now, whether they would have spelled it out longhand, as it were, at the time. Was there some sort of naval shorthand to cut the thing down a bit, to cut the cackle?
My fascination with boats was indulged on two occasions by stays in the former frigate 'Foudroyant', then anchored in Portsmouth harbour, stays which included a visit to an 'O' class submarine (then the last word in submarines) and a row past of the Vanguard (the last battleship of a long line in our Royal Navy), both a which earn a mention in Observer's. Not to mention the rows past line after line of warships which had been mothballed and which were headed for behind the shed, to take a phrase from the tank engine - the room 101 of the tank engine world. There was also divine service in the paneled chapel of HMS Dolphin, the once proud HQ of the submarine service, where we were treated to a very fire & brimstone sermon (nuclear bombs and nuclear wars being a bit of a thing at the time) from the padre. Memory says the text was from some apocalyptic bit of Isaiah with rivers of burning oil and suchlike.
An Observer's which even today is a rather cosy recapitulation of matters shippy (particularly, if not quite exclusively, our own) over the last century or so. A reminder of the days when we had a serious merchant marine and a serious navy. Not to mention the fishing fleet and the dying days of sail. I learn, for example, that the barque rig became popular mainly because it needed fewer men to drive it. I shall hang onto it for a bit longer.
But I let its geology brother go as a quid pro quo. A little book, rather spoiled for me by being taller relative to its width than the original version which would have been the same shape as that illustrated, but still providing a nicely potted introduction to matters geological, nicely potted in the sense that, while similar in coverage to an article in 'Chambers', is much more accessible and has far more pictures. I learned quite a bit from it during its six month sojourn in the study.
Justly popular books in their heyday and I can entirely see why one might collect the things and why they pop up so much in car boot sales and second hand book shops. Often at rather steep prices, many times the 5s., the price at which I last bought one new and the price at which I it sticks in my mind that they stuck for many years - although it also sticks in my mind that my memory is no where near as reliable as it used to be.
PS 1: I remember being quite shocked the first time I caught myself remembering a fact which turned out to be false. A shippy fact as it happens, in the Mitre (the one at the end of the 88 bus route), maybe 15 years ago.
PS 2: and I am quite shocked today to learn from Wikipedia that the Foudroyant was a third rate and was built in Plymouth, whereas memory said that it was a captured French frigate. But Wikipedia does admit both to a French ship of the name being captured 1758 and to a frigate being renamed the Foudroyant after the original had succumbed in Blackpool at the turn of the last century. I shall delve further.
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