poliphilo

When we lived in Oldham all our books- more or less- were in one room- and shelved rationally. It wasn't anal, but I knew that if I wanted a book by a particular author I'd find all their stuff in one place- and I knew where that place was.

When we moved down here it was in a hurried and disorderly fashion. For one thing we didn't have any idea we'd be staying so long. There are bookcases in almost every room and I tumbled books into them as they came to hand. All the Kiplings on one shelf? In your dreams.

This morning I went looking for the biography of Sidney Keyes. It's a small paperback with a brown cover- and very easy to overlook. I couldn't find it. I couldn't find the Collected Poems either.

That's it. Time to get things sorted. All the books are coming off their shelves and going back again in some sort of order.

I was looking for the Keyes because we were in Dartford yesterday, mooching around- and Dartford was where Keyes grew up. There was a photograph of a military chappie in the Dartford museum who I think was Keyes' father. And I wanted to learn more...

Dartford was also where my grandfather worked as a young man. He was at the Vickers factory during the Great War. We know this because we have a photo of him leaning over some blueprints, looking smug- and it has Vickers written on the back. I don't know exactly what his pay grade was but I like to think he was designing aircraft.