21 and out

The 21st and final Alan Hancox lecture at the Literature Festival was given yesterday morning. "A hugely successful series," John Randle said, by way of introduction: he paid particular thanks to Shelagh, Alan's widow, "a gentle encourager to us all."

The series, as John predicted, ended on a high note, Humphrey Stone giving a most affectionate portrait of his father, whose "life and work were one". We recognize the name, Reynolds Stone less readily than his artistic output: the Royal Arms on our passport, currency notes, the Dolcis logo, the Victory and other postage stamps... Humphrey Stone presented us with illustrations galore, projected onto screens that - because of the wind blowing outside the marquee - jumped around at times, making this member of the audience feel slightly seasick.

We saw also samples of his father's 350 bookplates and 100 memorial slabs. Mostly, they were drawn at a chaotic desk in the drawing room of his Old Rectory, three miles from Chesil Beach. Stone was essentially a miniaturist - "the eye, delighted by a small mouthful, is soon surfeited," he himself said. Pedantic, maybe, but nevertheless Stone was described by Iris Murdoch as "a totally unpretentious being," working with imagination, scholarship and good taste.

Besides lettering, Reynolds Stone's other great love was landscape, the inspiration for his "salad paintings", many featuring waterfalls and trees: in Sylvia Townsend Warner's words, it was "almost as though he was exiled from being a tree itself."

The Whittington Show

Despite an iffy forecast, it has been a fine day as usual for the Whittington Show. Charlotte came to lunch, and we took her up Ham Hill with us, sneaking in the back way and parking outside Kim and Ruth's. Doing this, we get to see the fête proper twice, on the way to the Court and on the way back: otherwise, it can be an effort to drag ourselves down to the village and back, what with the attractions of the Press, the church and the Court itself - where Jack was today looking particularly dapper, sitting in splendour in the bay window of his bedroom. Hugo presided in the hall, having to close the door when too many threatened to invade the house. Jenny, Lucy and Giles were on downstairs room duty.

At the Press, John cruised genially; Rose and Patrick were busy selling, and 20 or so stalls were set up under the trees, showing fine books from other presses, marbling, weaving, bees and much else: it's a unique gathering surely; and more and more come each year. Miriam peered through borrowed specs.; Freddie brought Zazie and guests; Kitty, Antonia, Rory and Judith, Toby and Ursula and family, Heather, Julian... And by the produce tent, I spoke to Jill and the Frys, and of course Ian with photographs and fudge as well as beef brochures. Roger and Dave were around the Hall, where we paused for tea before returning to the car, clutching second hand books for the grandchildren, the brass band still playing, but clouds gathering to spoil the brightness of the afternoon.

The Whittington Show

Once again, it was a fine afternoon for the annual show at Whittington, the parish where we lived between 1983 and 1994. The queue of vehicles stretched back to the A40: Rose Randle, of the famous Press, thought she had never seen so many cars parked. It never ceases to amaze me how such beautifully printed books emerge from a former gardener's shed, the contents of which are in such seeming disarray. But there is method in the Randle madness: in its 40 years or so the Whittington Press has earned a worldwide reputation, and the Open Day is a magnet for collectors and lovers of fine printing. The Show too, spilled over from the Village Hall and Green into the adjacent field, attracts its own regular adherents from all round the place, not just the many Parish alumni who turn out.

J. & W. Mitchell Ltd.

Mitchells was my father's place of work, and his father's before him. At the request of John Randle of The Whittington Press, I wrote my recollections about the business for Matrix 26, which was published in 2006. Some long time after that, someone from the British Association of Paper Historians rang and asked if I minded my article being reprinted. "Not at all," I said, and forgot all about it.

Now, a couple of copies of the BAPH's journal, The Quarterly (for January 2010) have plopped through our letter-box. Re-reading the article, I rather think it should have been re-written!

Mitchells' sample books are now deposited with the Sir Kenneth Green Library of Manchester Metropolitan University, as an addition to their special collection of fancy papers.