This is an autograph book which was given to my great-aunt, Minnie Davies, by her mother, on January 13th 1911. Or possibly not: the date below looks like 13th January1912; it's so close to the corner of the paper that it's hard to tell: but quite a lot of the autographs inside the book are dated 1911. Which is baffling - unless Minnie's mother gave her the book in 1911, but didn't get around to signing it herself for months? These things do happen.
The book is covered in soft purple suede, with differently coloured pages in pale pink, cream and blue, and people seem to have dotted their autographs around the pages at random, maybe choosing by colour.
"May she to whom this book belongs/Few troubles have if any/Her hours of grief may they be few/her sunny moments many.
Be a good girl/Lead a good life,/Choose a good husband/Make a good wife."
Pretty soon, though, the entries become more elaborate, and humour makes a welcome appearance with this oil painting - yes, oils! - of a joke: The Burning Question. A couple hidden behind a parasol...
... and a little boy who interrupts the idyll with the burning question: 'Have you any cigarette cards?'
People clearly went to great lengths to shine in autograph books. There isn't a single example, in the entire book, of 'merely' a signature. Everyone wrote a verse or drew a picture. Did people have a fund of little verses or jokes at the ready, for the next time someone whipped out an album? I suspect they did. In 1913 Jock Jowitt of 'Kirkee', somewhere in India (?) must have been happy to have found this simple no-fuss solution:
Romance creeps in. No importunate little boys in this pen and ink picture signed 'Love LL Gordon, 1914'.
And there's a poem from G H C in March 1913:
'You can't stop the sun from beaming/You can't stop the birds' refrain./You can't stop yourself from dreaming,/You can't stop the drops of rain./You can't stop the stars from gleaming/Up in the heaven above,/And you can't stop your heart from beating/For the boy you love.' It could almost be a Cole Porter lyric.
But the War to End All Wars was looming. Where was JF heading from or to, in 1916, I wonder, when he paused to carefully draw and paint this?
And the war actually enters the autograph book on these pages here: two carefully executed illustrations by P.V. Bastin, 4th Devon Regt, dated 14.1.15. The left hand page is a watercolour painting of a ketch entitled 'Running Into Harbour'. The right hand page, in pen and ink, is labelled in meticulous, tiny handwriting:
'Whitby Abbey (Bombarded by the Germans, Dec. 1914). What was he thinking of when he drew these?
The last entry in the book, although not the last chronologically, is a set of jingoistic dialect verses entitled - ominously, I think -
'The 'Great War 1914 - 15 - '
Aw! I've listed, mai dear, for a sawjer
Ess, I've tooked the ole shillin' for sure
They've give me a kit and they've give me a gun,
And I'm gwain away to the War.
... An' I'll bet ee a pound to a vardun [farthing] cake
The when us comes marchin' back,
The maidens'll all turn their smiles to me
And give 'Molly Coddlins' the sack.
So blaw up the boogle and sound the Volleen ['the Fall In']
My how they bagginets shine,
'Tion! Move to the right in four. 'Form fours'.
Right. Forward, into the line.
Dalhousie July - 1915 - Geo. E Hart.
I just hope he really did come marching back...
Photos: copyright Katherine Langrish 2012
