Beryl Papers

 I pushed hard the last two days to get thru the remainder of the scanning of this stack of papers that Debbie collated last year.  There are hundreds of pages and this it seems is only volume 1, if the remaining untouched boxes are any guide. I only read a line or two in order to get a title to use as a filename. If anyone is going to read more thoroughly then set aside a lot of time.  I started comparing these papers to this blog.  There are similarities eg random unconnected ideas as different from one day to the next.  However there are a lot less words here than in these pages.  In some ways the collection is a messy diary on all types of scrap paper and other times there are co-ordinated foolscap pages properly dated.  Blogs are an open book and now these papers are digital as well but were they ever meant to be.

Volume 1

Writings

 Spent another session scanning a section of the papers that Debbie has compiled from Beryl's writing desk.  I have not been reading much of it, other than the first few lines, inorder to get a title for each filename. I have included one here which she labeled 'The Street'  however it could have been more like 'Our house in the street'.  I also got out the book that Asher gave me where you jot down ramblings from time to time. So I opened it at a random place and filled in the page related to nicknames and childhood toys.

Memoirs

 I got Debbie to the Gull bus around 7:00am so she should be up in Brisbane by now.  The rain has been steady today, so time to start the next scanning project. Debbie has been sorting Beryl's papers amongst everything else but rather than wait for a complete set she has given me the first volume and it is a whopper. I looked at some of this last year with a view to running them through an Optical Character Recognition program but the one's I have are old and produce that other language, gibberish.  I am using a sheet feed scanner to reproduce an exact digital copy, as a PDF file of all these pages.  There is an OCR extension you can get by subscribing to Adobe, that will most likely produce a fair, typed, searchable document, if we want to spend the money. In the meantime I have attached one short piece as an example of how they will turn out.

The written pages are mostly foolscap so far, with a date starting 1985.  Some are flimsy and tattered but the scanner is passing multiple pages ok, so that means the output folder will have multipage documents instead of single page files. 

Open at Page One

OCR converts to yiddish, rubbish and gibberish

 I tried an el cheapo Optical Character Recognition program that I have had laying around. The ABBYY finereader has been supplied with most scanners for years but when you get something for nothing then maybe that is what you get.  Unless you want to pay lots extra I don't think using OCR will help much in getting written pages into typed manuscript word format.  These written pages are in your traditional cursive flowing style on different papers with different pens and over a long period of time have fading problems as well.  The results I got from this program were totally unrecognisable.  The process looks encouraging as colours are cast down the page, highlighting here and underscoring there. You are meant to do a manual intervention here, so I just saved it into a file that turned out to be complete hieroglyphics.  The best thing here is just to sit down and patiently retype every word into new word files.

As far as I could tell the green area was what it found, the red area was to be deleted and the white area was totally ignored.

Letter Writing

 I found an example below of what people used to do years ago eg letter writing. This woman is writing in 1980, from New Zealand, to say she is sorry she can't write because she is so busy, even though she is writing to say that!  It is an international aerogram form with postage attached. Those NZers also had a concept of Health Camps where the money from certain stamps funded the camp.

Running with necktie

Who is Annette?

Return to the Archive Box

I have two notes from the Archive Box that I have scanned today.  The first one is a travel postcard written to me in 1992 when a group of  ex MMBW employees had the audacity to form a computer company, hence the salutation  Dear Neil and MITites.  She compares New York to a jungle, a bit like Jethro Tull did in their song lyrics.  The other one is a thank you note from Carol Tamburro.  This is also dated 1992. She had a baby girl then who would be 28 now and maybe has had kids of her own. However I have lost track of that. It seems we also gave her some handme down clothes, probably from Laura, who was four at the time.  I bet handme down clothes would not be as welcome these days.  Elyse already has plenty of handme down clothes after baby number five and three girls in a row.

I never take stamps off postcards 

28 yar old baby Jessica

Final Theory

This is a story written by a physicist so he has wound it around Albert Einstein.  There is some basis of fact in it but mostly he has made it up as he went along.  This is similar to my Penny Queen tale. I used Sir Rowland Hill as a starting point then made up the rest.  I have now worked out the ABCTales website.  They gave me an account and after some to and fro I have my short story uploaded there. It seems attention span for reading on a screen is very short. Maybe that is why I try to keep these blog posts short as well. The ABC people strictly hold the story to 2700 words however I had 3500. They think 2700 is the limit for a reading session on line. It may be more about the standard of amateur writing.   I thought mine was short in the first place but for them it is too long. In the end I got around it by splitting into Part I and Part II.  Search for 'Penny Queen' at ABCTales.com. They are set up with feedback loops, statistics etc.

Book Cover 

I used this for the ABCTales cover page - "Rally to the stamp cause"

Part III

There are a few websites and forums online where amateurs can up load writing, stories etc in a common way, a bit like the blog sphere.  You used to be able to go to a random blog within Google Blogger but they took away the button due to hacker activity.  I was looking at ABC Tales.  There are over 100,000 short stories loaded there by 20,000 writers, that's a lot of amateurs. I will have to look into how that works. In the meantime the final installment of my stamp fiction is below.

Sir Melan Brook was contemplating his vast array of display cases. His collection was amassed over 60 years and represented the best examples of everything philatelic.  Deep pockets go a long way to building a collection but so also does information.  When an essential item crosses his purview most times it is legitimately bought, other times not.  He had long wondered whether it had been worth his while to keep payments up to certain dealers for the inside running on new merchandise coming onto the market.  If this latest call rang true it was intriguing to hear there was a new contender for the oldest stamp in the world.  And this one is definitive with provenance, while his, now pretender to the crown, although a true mint example in superb condition, has no such provenance.  And the rumor was there may be five of them. 

He picked up the phone, ‘Mr. Ribbons I need you to arrange a further meeting with the Frys. Convince them another examination is required, scans of the book in particular.  I’ll make it worth your while.’

At the Fry household Jack answered a knock at the door.

‘Hello I am Sir Perfun Dale and I am here about your book.’ 

‘Not more knights, word spreads fast’, said Jack. 

Now seated at the kitchen table Sir Perfun began his pitch. 

‘I keep my ear to the ground particularly on the lead up to conferences like WorPhilEx.  The stamp world is abuzz at the moment and with perferationists out and about, I am on high alert. Let me just say that I have an informer amongst the staff of a certain estate, whereby I have heard that your book has come to the attention of a rival collector whose methods have been questionable,’ persuaded Sir Perfun.  

Jack couldn’t stand it any longer, ‘Who or what are perferationists?’ 

‘They are another shadowy group of agitators. Some say they want stamps to return,’ replied Sir Perfun.

Alice had been listening with astonishment, ‘What are we getting into here, with informants, knights and placard waving perfectionists.’

‘Perferationists,’ corrected Sir Perfun. 

‘I think it is cool,’ said Jack. ‘What is our next move?’ he asked. 

Mrs. Fry replied, ‘We were to have a meeting tomorrow for scientific scans of the diary as requested by Mr. Ribbons, however there has been a doubling of appointments.’

‘I may be able to assist here, said Sir Perfun. I can attend the session in your stead and supervise the examination myself.’  

‘Alice and I can go as family representatives,’ declared Jack.

‘A pleasure,’ assured Sir Perfun.

The city was crowded with sidewalk shufflers.  Jack carried the book and was wondering whether they should have wrapped it better than sticking it in a brown paper bag.  He was knocked down from the side by a burly type who simply dragged him back to his feet and kept going.  

Sir Perfun called out, ‘After him, that man has your book’. 

All three began the chase. Sir Perfun and Alice were left behind when Jack took up the real running. Mr. BurlyBeef was also Mr. FastForward but Jack saw him ahead dodging thru traffic.  When Jack finally got across the city street, the book thief was lost in the crowd. The others caught up with a pant. 

Sir Perfun was muttering, ‘I do not know who that was but I think I know where he went. Follow me.’

They proceeded a few blocks to an ornate building. 

Sir Perfun was anxious, ‘Here is the office of Sir Melan Brook, the esteemed philatelic collector.’

However they could not gain access without an appointment. 

‘He is most likely at home preparing for this evening’s regular lecture. Here is my invitation for the discussion, the topic being “Perforated Initials”,’ said Sir Perfun as he passed around the elaborate invite.

Sir Perfun explained the history with his rival Sir Melan.

‘No one really knows who owns the oldest stamp but right now you have the best claim.  Sir Melan will use any tactic including bullying, substitution, stealing or bribery. They are all just methods for him and I have been on the end of it more than once, ‘said Sir Perfun.

‘If you don’t like him then why do you go to his stamp lectures?’ asked Alice.  

Sir Perfun was thoughtful, ‘It’s true I don’t like the man but I do like to look at his stamps.’ 

They were now going off to the nearest Police Station to report the theft.  Jack made his excuses saying he just wanted to go home but that Alice should stay with Sir Perfun to make the complaint.  She wasn’t happy but went along with it.  Jack’s real motivation was to go pay a visit to Sir Melan Brook. 

On the train, he was pondering how to go about this.  It was nearly dark and he knew he had plenty of time as his parents weren’t getting home until late.  Thanks to the invitation, Jack could type the address of Sir Melan into Google maps. The house was only 500 yards from the station. This area was semi-rural and on his approach, he could see it was more mansion than house.  The main gate looked sturdy and locked but the fence was a brick wall crumbling with age.  He followed the wall around until some broken masonry gave him the chance to pull himself up and over.  The landing was a bit noisy amongst twigs and dead foliage.  He could see a side door with an electronic keypad only 5 yards away. Before he could think about this, the door clicked open.

The disembodied voice asked, ‘Why don’t you come in young Mr. Fry?’

Jack wasn’t sure if it was the same Mr. Beefy from earlier in the day but he was shoved into a room and kept there. He had been ignoring his sister’s calls and decided he would wait for more developments.  Shortly Mr. Beefy returned with an elderly man.

Jack through him a dirty look, ’You must be Sir Melan. I was warned about you by Sir Perfun.’ 

Sir Melan fixed a piercing gaze that gave Jack the shakes, ‘I can assure you Jack that whatever you were told, it is all true. I need you to tell me where the other four are.’  He raised a clear bag with the penny black, ‘This first one is exquisite.  I have done some exhaustive scans of your book and I can confirm there are no stamps to be found.’

‘I don’t know where the others are. They are lost. We told that to your dealer friend,’ yelled Jack.

‘You are onto my methods aren’t you young Jack.  By the way Sir Melan is not the angel you might think.  Mr Dolton can you break one of Jack’s fingers please?’ 

Suddenly Jack heard then felt a snap, twice. His small finger was bent then straightened again in a matter of seconds. The pain was a surge to the brain and back to the finger. Jack just looked at it in shock. It was like his whole body was throbbing, not just the finger.

A knock at the door by a servant announced that Sir Perfun had arrived early for the evening’s soiree.

‘I told you I did not want to be disturbed,’ bellowed Sir Melan, however Sir Perfun was ushered into the room. 

‘I’m sorry Sir Melan I did insist‘, said Sir Perfun, stopping mid sentence as he scanned the room and saw the grimaced look on Jack’s face.

‘Hello Jack’, said Sir Perfun, ‘Your sister rang me when you didn’t return. I can see from your hand you have met Sir Melan’s associate.’

‘This numbskull broke my finger’, replied Jack gesturing at Mr. Dolton.  

Sir Melan was not put off, ‘Come now young  Jack you damaged your finger in the fall from my fence. We just got you in here for some first aid. Would you apply a bandage to Jack’s injury Mr Dolton.’ 

Jack was feeling better now but could not work out how to proceed in this bizarre situation. 

Sir Melan produced the diary and placed it down, ‘Now young Jack I am asking again where are the missing four?’

‘Perhaps you should take another look Jack just to keep Sir Melan happy,’ suggested Sir Perfun.  

Jack reluctantly opened the book and gave an involuntary gasp.  The others picked up on this immediately.

‘I knew there was nothing else like a bit of pain to focus your thoughts’, exclaimed Sir Melan. ‘What have you remembered my boy?’ 

‘I have noticed something different. The bookmark is missing!’  said Jack.

All eyes turned to Mr. Dolton who was now looking a bit perplexed.

Sir Melan rounded on him, ‘Tell me exactly what you did to bring it here.’  

Mr. Dolton screwed his face in thought, ‘It would have been when I opened the bag to make sure it was a book. I must have lost it then. I went into the side door of the office building and checked it at the bottom of the stairwell.’ 

‘Go there at once,’ commanded Sir Melan, ‘find that bookmark.  Call me when you arrive. I must see your search live on your phone, and take this lighter with you.’ 

‘What’s this for?’ asked Mr. Dolton. 

‘To burn those stamps with of course,’ whispered Sir Melan.  He looked across eye to eye, ‘What say you Sir Perfun?’ 

‘Yes, destroy them,’ he replied with an embarrassed look. 

Jack could not believe what he was hearing.

The call came thirty minutes later.  There had been an eerie silence in the room until then. Mr. Dolton was making his way down the fire escape.  The light was reasonable and they could make out the stairs via the phones video link. At the bottom there was a bit of detritus blown in from the outside street, some papers, leaf litter and sure enough laying on its edge was the bookmark.  Considering the 200 year time frame it was standing up to the rigors, except for Mr. Dolton.  

He started pulling on the tassel end, then vehemently shaking it for no result. 

‘Calm down Mr. Dolton, urged Sir Melan. Extract your knife and gently sever that stitching I can see there.’

‘I need to put the phone down Sir’, suggested the increasingly exasperated Mr. Dolton. ‘Very well,’ agreed Sir Melan, ‘but describe what you see step by step. Now proceed.’

The stitching was duly cut enabling a space to be opened between two halves of the silk embroidered bookmark.   The tension back at Sir Melan’s was acute and Jack was all concentration as well.  Mr. Dolton broke the silence, ‘I can see there is something inside. It is paper. Yes, all four are here Sir.  I have the lighter going, the four of them are joined in a square.’ 

‘NOOO…’  is the urgent call by both the Sirs.

WORPHILEX 2040 show cased stamp exhibits from all countries.  Sir Rowland Hill had never intended to start an industry, a worldwide phenomenon. He just wanted to make mail delivery more efficient.  Now after 200 years we can see a corner block of four Penny Blacks.  

Sir Perfun was standing with the Fry family on the main concourse of the exhibition level.

‘I came to the same realization as Sir Melan. The cat was out of the bag. We could not own them publicly or privately, but if they were gone, no one else could either, he said shaking his head.  When that corner block emerged, in mint condition and so precisely cut by your great ancestor, that was the rarest of them all.  You know, back at the start, people were enthusiastic.  They sent a little picture of the Queen to all their friends and family. The novelty never wore off. We started with 68 million penny blacks in the world. Who knows how many there are still left? I guess in the lead up to this recent discovery, Sir Melan and I were both a bit unhinged.’

Part II

Every time I read over this text I change something. Now I know why some books take years to come out such as George RR Martin. His story was started 24 yar ago and it's nine years since the last volume of Game of Thrones with two still to go.  I only have eight pages to put up here. I'll put the rest tomorrow.

Williamsan Britain 2040 …

The Fry family are gathered as all families do.

‘Alice is writing letters to girlfriends or is it boyfriends,’ declared Jack.

‘What do 14 year olds know about writing letters?’ his sister asked.  ‘All you do is use your phone for everything else. Don’t you know, there is nothing private when you use a phone. When I write it down and post it, only the person who opens it can know.’

Jack thinks there may be merit in this approach.

‘Like details about boyfriends. How do you send a letter anyway?’ Jack goes on. 

Alice, in superior voice replied, ‘I assume you still know what a pen and paper is.  Once you have finished writing, you put the folded sheet in an envelope.  The next part requires your phone, so for you, the hardest thing will be using the pen.  You need the Postal App for this to work and an account with the Post Office. On the App form you enter the delivery info.’

‘Like what sort of delivery info?’

With a note of impatience Alice instructs him on the need for a recipient name, phone number, address and Postcode.

‘What’s a postcode?’  asked Jack. 

‘OOO, it’s so the letter can more easily find where my friend lives, OK. Next you place the phone against the envelope and press activate. This does a few things, like seal the envelope, transfer the address to it, pay for the delivery and finally sends the unlock code to my friend’s phone.  The last thing is to put it in the letter box out on the street and the day after that it will arrive at my friend’s house. Any questions?’ prompted Alice with the flourish of an arm.

‘So, it’s just a blank envelope that goes into the letter bin,’ said Jack.

‘Letter box dummy!’ returned Alice.

‘How does the address get onto the envelope if its blank?’ asked Jack with a more interested tone.

This time Asher was stumped and could only reply that it does.

‘It’s the nanites!  They are very small machines and are woven into the fabric of the envelope,’ lectured Mr. Fry.  They are instructed by the phone app to embed the delivery info into the envelope itself, rather than on it and also to bind together to seal it shut.  At the destination, the receiving phone App will erase the nanite patterns thereby opening the envelope and making it ready to use again. Saves the environment you know,’ added Mr. Fry.

Mrs. Fry is also attentive to this explanation.  ‘You know your great ancestor uncle played a role in setting up this whole postal business that you have been talking about.  He was an assistant to Sir Rowland Hill, who reorganised postal services by introducing stamps to prove payment.’

‘What’s a stamp?’ asked Alice. 

‘It’s a small paper square with glue on the back that you moisten so as to stick it onto the envelope,’ making rude tongue gestures at her daughter.  ‘This meant the letter could be delivered, as payment had been made, just like when your App takes the payment from your account. In those days it was only a penny but your App would have taken £3.’

‘People have been collecting those stamps for 200 years and since none have been printed since 2020, the values of really old stamps in particular, have been going up,‘ chipped in Mr. Fry.

‘So, what did the grand Uncle do exactly?’ asked Jack.

Mrs. Fry was warming to the topic.

‘He worked in Sir Rowland Hill’s office, but according to his diary it was always on the messy stuff. Experiments with clag and resins that would make a stamp stick. I like to think of him as the glue that held the office together. My mother took the diary to a stamp dealer when she was young. It seems the book has an historical interest and was worth keeping in a safe place.  It has been on a shelf here unopened for 50 years.’

‘They made that guy a knight for inventing stamps. Can I see one of these stamps?’ asked Jack.  

‘Just hold right there.’  Mr. Fry leaves the room on a mission and his wife disappears as well.  Soon he is back with stamps, amongst them one of the last ever printed, showing a Dodo with a face value of £1.  ‘I guess they thought interest in stamps was going to fade like a Dodo,’ sighed Mr. Fry.

‘Before you ask me why they have those holes between them, they are called perforations and they make it easier to separate each individual stamp.  Back in your grand uncle’s day you needed scissors to separate them out. The lesson now continues,’ as he glances up to see his wife returning.

She has the original workbook which describes the methods her ancestor uncle used to make various adhesives. ‘See he has even left a bookmark on the page for the best recipe,’ beamed Mrs. Fry.

Jack took hold of the book, noting its scruffy worn cover, scrawled pages and smudged ink.  There are also some pages stuck together.  ‘It’s not exactly the glamour side of the partnership is it.’

He started shaking it violently to see if the pages would unstick. Before his mother can tell him off, something falls out of the cover.

‘There’s an extra folded sheet here, look.’  Opening it straight away a prime Penny Black is revealed and a short note from Winston Wood –

                Mr Hill has instructed me to burn the rest of my test sheet for the Queen. I have done so except for 5 samples that I have hidden away in my notebook.  These are some of the first ever examples of our work.

Mouths were agape when Jack finished reading.  Mrs. Fry was in shock and took the book back for a careful closer look at the slit revealed in the cover.  ‘All this time and no-one knew. I don’t see anything else in there. Where are the other four stamps then?’ as she looked to her husband. 

‘See if the back cover has a slit in it,’ he suggested.

No sign of any other stamps could be found.  Never the less they were looking at an instant fortune considering the whole package consisting of the book, now with the letter and stamp.

It was decided the next morning that a professional opinion should again be sought, 50 years after the first one, considering the changed circumstance.  They also concluded that the other four stamps must have previously dropped from the cover and are now lost. However they are more than happy with the situation.  This is exactly how it was explained to the dealer at Manly Ribbons Pty Ltd. 

Jack was falling on the floor laughing.

‘Where should I wear my ribbon then?’ he asked. 

Alice warned him not to distract the dealer by being an idiot. After much examination of the package, Jack paid more attention when the sum of a million dollars was mentioned as a probable valuation.  Mr. Ribbons entered the details in his database and made rigorous scanned images of the stamp. He suggested the best way forward might be to display the package at the upcoming WORPHILEX 2040 conference. This was a philatelic extravaganza to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of Sir Rowland Hill and the first release of the Penny Black. 

Penny Queen

I have read four or five books now where there are parallel story lines operating in a different time frame.  So some ideas have been whirling around about writing a short story with a stamp theme just to give it a try. I have been churning it out over the last week or so. It is only 3000 to 4000 words so no more than eight pages.  This could be suited to a serial type of approach on this blog.  I have put up the historical groundwork today, illustrated with a stamp.

The Knights and the Frys

               

Victorian Britain 1840 …

‘The Queen is waiting Mr. Wood, as if the Queen would wait for the likes of you and I.’

 ’Yes Mr. Hill, I have some sheets and samples ready for your inspection.  This one I have prepared with a more flavorsome gum. I little extra sugar here and beeswax there, should be just a treat for the Queen’s lips, Mr. Hill.‘

‘It is almost treasonous Mr. Wood to be talking of the Queen’s lips. Let me taste your latest effort.  Erk!  I think not Mr. Wood.  Give me that other sheet, I will cut the samples myself. I have to get these to the Secretary pronto and then everything hinges on the Queen.  Remove that latest concoction and destroy the sheet and samples you have tainted them with.  That book of yours must have a dozen different ways to make paste for our sample. Just stick to your previous recipe Mr. Wood, that one works and clean this work space, I want to see a regular bench when I return.’

‘The face piece is your domain and your design for the Queen Mr. Hill but on the back I am king of the gum, so says I, Winston Wood.’

Pen Pal - Not

I have continued to dig deeper into the 30yar box of stamps but there is stuff in there a lot older.  One way to get stamps is to start up corresponding with someone in Europe say. They get your stamps and you get there's. This electronic stuff has killed that sort of thing.  I have found proof that it did happen although the end note was a bit curt and not even hand written.

1962 with a 5 penny stamp

Bugger Off dated 1947

Card Writing Day

In my University days I used to write for hours at a time and as fast as possible in order to keep pace with the spoken word.  These days physical writing seems to be a lot harder work. We all favour typing, like this blog post, but if I'm going to the trouble of buying cards and specialised postage stamps then doing the addressing, envelope licking and stamp sticking, as well as the posting, then an extra 15 minutes each to write something down, once a year can't be that hard.  There are some tips. 

• Do the card writing earlier in December rather than later 
• Have the list of recipients and their addresses ready
• Use an ink stamp for the return address or don't even bother with one\
• Mention which year it is
• Don't carry them around in your pocket for a week 
• Derr: use the cheap stamps 

Even still I just spent four hours writing 15 Christmas cards, filling just one of the blank pages with text.  You can get on a roll and say much the same thing in each card. They are not going to read each others. 

I need more stamps