VICTORIA DREW

~ bookbinder supreme ~

Props to the marvelous Victoria Drew for such an expert job on our late Consul of Cricket, the late and great John Forte's, history of willow-on-leather history of Corfu cricket.Here's a measure of Victoria's conscientious insistence on only the best: the book was falling apart, re-glue no use, so she stitched it together.

PLEB DOUSER ~ I'm being fanciful in this foto to the left.
Ive rested the book against a dragon-fish my mother brought from China.
Mandarin houses had them at each corner of the rooves: the open tails would catch the monsoon rain and it would gush out of the mouth on the pedestrian plebs below.
$1,000s and thousands, they're worth now. Mum brought some back and this one is on the patio and another at a corner of the pool where dogs and daughters can drink if they're thirsty.
PIMP MY DAD'S DICTIONARY: there's another example of Victoria's work, my saintèd dad's dictionary that he used in his studentia at Bradford Grammar and then at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge.
Look at the wonderful restoration. The lush block leather is a joy to handle.
I took it to Oxford and later insisted my literate daughters use.

"But, daad! It doesn't give the word!"

'Fie, child, in that case it must be one of your 'modern' words. A plague on it! Choose another!'

It was printed in the early 1930s. No excuse.
It has some marvelous creaky definitions which I would read out to my techie colleagues at Amazon.

"Dude! That is like a must in the FAQ."