Girls Own Annual

I found a book relegated to the garage -- well it wasn't really the garage it should have been Mum's studio. Now it was just a storage shed. Sadly she didn't get time to retire and paint before she died twenty years ago. The shed was not the ideal storage place because it was built next to an old creek bed. Every now and then the land returned to its former purpose during one in twenty year flood events. The building sustained these deluges two or three times before I retrieved my mother's things.

Two rickety old shelves held the excess household books. Mum had ensured that her childhood treasures and her old favourites were elevated. Somehow her treasures became mixed with objects cast out of the house in the latest exercise in discarding excess furniture. In reality this should have been a comfy, sunny studio housing a daybed -- a place to potter and paint. Twenty years after Mum had died it had become a repository for everything that Dad had collected plus his office archives, surplus lamps, paintings suitcases, trunks and other "stuff"

When cleaning out the shed lots of this useful stuff found its way to the dump bin, op shops or auction sales. In deciding what to keep there were rash moments of "Chuck it" or discussions about whether to  "give it away" or  "could be worth something". Cleaning out that shed took weeks.

It was old and obviously well loved, ravaged by moisture and lack of care, It was a dog-eared and repaired relic I should think I would never read it and it was totally unsaleable. The Girl's Own Annual won out. This 800 page dilapidated book from my mother's shelves came home with me and only later did I work why it is so important for me to keep….

 

Girls Own Annual   “was an important and positive influence on generations of girls and women, and a vital outlet for women's writing and ideas, for more than three-quarters of a century". E Honor Ward

 

A bit of research and the book was much older than my mother –so it wasn’t hers. It was then the penny dropped. “The Girls Own Annual” volume XXX was printed in 1909/1910. Finally I had a relic of the Gadsby family’s travels from England. This book came out to Australia with my great grandmother Selina and her girls 100 years ago. I can just imagine them pawing over this large finely bound green hardcover publication with gilt lettering during the 6 week journey to Australia .

The Girl’s Own Paper and Women’s Magazine was strewn with illustrated pages of paintings and drawings both in colour and black and white. There were pages of women’s fashions of the day- Edwardian dresses the girls would have had packed in their trunks ready to wear in “the colonies”.  There were stories of the times, photos of royalty, plants and gardens-not unlike current Women’s magazines only much more sensible.  It included plenty of tips on etiquette, ideas and patterns for crafts and all manner of commonsense subjects such as “Possibilities with Lemons” “Suggestions for School-girl’s Dresses”, “Ideas for Towel Ends. It may answer to “rare book” but it will never be described as “in excellent condition” or even “good” on E-bay but to me it’s priceless!