Question of the week: Do you have a favourite London possession? "Strangely, my favourite London possessions did not come from London. There is no proof that they had ever come to London or been seen by a Londoner before I brought them here when I moved from the US.
I have two Baedecker guidebooks for London (one from 1905, the other from 1908) that I bought from the $1 discard table at Hesburg Library. For $1 each (not total - that would be undervaluing them!) I have an insight into a lost London. I know what steamers were running from New York to Plymouth, and how long I should plan to be on board (at least 5 days, 17 hours and 13 minutes). I can plan to have dinner in the 'Ladies' Room' at Simpson's Dining Rooms, which serves 'in the English style'. (Simpson's is still on the Strand, serving meat off the joint, little changed... Though ladies are allowed in all the dining rooms now.) I know how much a taxi will cost, or what bus to take to get me around the city, and I can plan which rooms in which museums I can't miss.
All of these things have gone now. And there is very little way to see this lost London without things like guide books. Normal Londoners wouldn't keep records like these - like you and I, they would just know where to go, what bus to take and how much things cost. But it's a goldmine for anyone with an interest in history, especially the history of 'small things', the way people lived.
Time changes everything, social revolutions and bombs speed things up, but in my two little books I have a window into a little-thought-about London that had disappeared forever."- Kris
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