Now to show you the one book which does for me have a story.
When I was in my teens and my gran and I were 'heavily' into tatting we suffered a real dearth of books. We had the Penelope and Coats books which came out very rarely but that was about all.
Somehow gran heard about the 'Every Woman's Complete Guide to Tatting Illustrated'. She asked about it in the local library and about six months later they'd found a copy in a library 'up north'. Remember that in those days everything was done by letter and/or phone so it took time.
Well we were so excited when we were loaned a copy for a month or so. BUT that wasn't the end of the story.
A few years later and at the age of 70 my gran took a round the world trip with the main intention of meeting her brother Harold whom she hadn't seen for 40 years. So she landed up in Australia where this book was published and where Harold lived. Whilst there she 'advertised' on the radio and television for this rare book and was offered a copy which she obviously bought and brought back home with her. I now have this book. I did make a few things from it back then.
Below is the copy I won from the Ebay lady. OK, the cover is 'tatty' but the 'innards' are excellent. I think I'll probably sell this on Ebay later this year. We'll see.
Of course we now know that the book was by Norma Benporath and has since been re-printed. I really wonder how this copy got to dear old England - was it like gran's and travelled back with another tatter when it was new? If only books could speak.
