A Tale of Books, The Battle of the River Plate and of Coffee Stirrers….

Jane’s Fighting Ships needs little introduction and this is the compilation WW2 volume. Fighting Ships of WW1 and WW2 is a hardback compilation from the old Purnell range of A4 sized 64 page paperbacks - a pocket money standby from my youth! Naval guns is essentially a picture book snapshotting various types of artillery across five centuries. There are some great pictures, accompanied by some useful, albeit brief background to the weapons depicted. Finally, a selection of accounts of the most famous Royal Navy actions, again over the centuries.

As many of you may know, there are a vast number of ‘buying and selling’ groups on Facebook. I belong to a number of specialist types - specialist as in special interest - as well as a few geographically local versions. Very occasionally, among the sofas to be disposed of or sets of golf clubs looking for a new home, something turns up that catches the eye. In this case it was a selection of naval books - 12 in all - that a lady was disposing of, all for £5! After an exchange of messages the deal was struck and so I drove over to her house after hydrotherapy yesterday to complete the transaction.

I knew in advance that a couple of titles I already owned but playing forward would be easy enough. The books you see in the picture above are the ones I am keeping, three are destined for a local charity ship whilst the others are for playing forward, so to speak. I was a little embarrassed at the low cost of the haul but the lady was adamant that £5 was sufficient. Interestingly enough, she told me that the books had belonged to a great uncle that had died a few years ago in a nearby care home. He had served during WW2 aboard HMS Ajax and saw action at the Battle of the River Plate. Apparently he had some memorabilia from the ship but when he died no one knew what happened to it - it was in his room at the care home. You never know who or what pieces of history can be found more of less on one’s doorstep!

I use a lot of these but very seldom venture anywhere that you can get them from - Starbucks, Costas, Cafe Nero or even McDonalds! Very useful for the scratch builder.

Laurel and I headed to our local boot sale this morning and once again the pickings for yours truly were pretty thin but I did manage to score a bag of 1,000 wooden coffee stirrers for the princely sum of £1. That should keep the shipyards bust for quite some time to come!