It’s a cover up I tell ya… 10.09.09
RECENTLY I found a book
that I had many years ago as a student and found neatly
written in the corner the price I had paid for it.
I can only assume at this stage that the reason I had
written the price on the book, was to ensure I could
determine the best possible price whenever I would
decide to sell it on. As it turned out, I can assume
that since I found the book in question, I never did
actually sell it.
But it did get me thinking about the way in which we
went to great lengths to keep books in good condition
years ago. This usually involved wallpaper.
I’m not exactly sure where the relationship with
wallpaper and schoolbooks began, but whenever I was at
school, if you didn’t have wallpaper on your school
books you were nobody.
Or maybe you were somebody. And somebody who could be
trusted not to scribble your name or any kind of
mindless doodles on your book which in most
circumstances would be sold on - or passed down. |
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I know I couldn’t. Which is
why the wallpaper always came in handy.
It was probably around that time that I also discovered
that covering a book (we used to always call it backing
a book for some reason) required the same kind of
dexterity that people who are good at wrapping presents
have.
I was not one of those people back then and funnily
enough it is not something that has come to me with the
experience of years.
There was a particular knack to it, making sure the
paper was cut and folded in just the right places so
that when you tried to close the book it wouldn’t spring
open again.
I also discovered that using wood-chip wallpaper always
made things that little bit more difficult, not to
mention the fact that it increased significantly your
chances of getting a splinter every time you reached
into your schoolbag.
Instead we usually used old pieces of left-over
wallpaper, more often than not very old pieces from
wallpaper that was nowhere to be found on any wall in
the house any more.
The reason for this apparently was, that we couldn’t use
left-over pieces of wallpaper presently on the wall,
because these were needed in case a piece had to be
fixed or patched.
The trouble with this of course was that, more often
than not, your book would have been backed with
wallpaper that was terribly out of fashion.
Why it would have made any difference I’m not sure, but
looking back on it now I’m wondering if the idea for all
those home fashion magazines grew from the fact that so
many books were covered with wallpaper.
Indeed I’m wondering now if there were at least some
teachers who spent their lunch breaks trying to imagine
what the inside of the various students’ houses looked
like on the basis of how their books were covered.
Perhaps they thought that every wall in your sitting
room was still covered with that dodgy looking flowery
wallpaper that made an appearance in the mid seventies.
Or maybe they thought that because there were so many
people in my family that if we bought wallpaper and put
it on our books, there was none left for the walls which
were bare.
Perhaps it was because of this that some people began to
use the calming uniformity of brown paper on their
childrens’ books. And, if they couldn’t afford the brown
paper they just turned the wallpaper around leaving the
blank side on the outside.
Really fancy people used that sticky plastic paper,
sometimes stuff with wood patterns on it so it looked as
if your book was covered with a cheap sheet of wood. |
Well that is of course, if
you could imagine a sheet of wood with bubbles in it.
But it’s all different these days - or so I thought
until last week when one of my daughters looked as if
she was working very hard on the computer.
She had returned to school, a day earlier and there were
books strewn on the desk so I assumed it was homework.
“So, what are you up to,” I asked, (hoping she didn’t
need any help) and was stunned at her reply.
“Not much, just downloading a new wallpaper for the
computer,” she said.
And there was I thinking that things had changed since I
was at school… |
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A DROP OF
PORTER is
the weekly
column of
Inishowen
Independent
editor,
Liam Porter. |
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