When I was seven, my family went on our first summer trip to the UK. Out of those six weeks, we spent over a week in Scotland. It was both my brother’s and my first time visiting the country, and we both loved it. It was like a wonderland to us; my brother was enamoured with all of the steam trains that he could ride on while pretending he was an engineer on Thomas the Tank Engine.
And me? I loved castles. I wanted to go to every castle in Scotland, despite my mother telling me multiple times that it would be impossible to do that in a week.
One of the first “castles” we visited wasn’t really a castle — it was a stately home on the ‘Great Houses of Scotland’ trail (which encompassed six stately homes and castles across the country, all of which I eventually got to visit). Hopetoun House, located on the fringes of Edinburgh in what is described as “a fabulous setting of built and rural heritage,” was stunning and full of so many amazing things — tapestries and turrets, to name a few — that I would never get to see in Texas.
My memories of the actual house aren’t very strong, and I feel like it would be visiting it anew if I were to go back. However, I do remember our visit to the gift shop afterwards. I looked all around the gift shop for something to mark the memorable occasion that was our visit. Eventually, I found something perfect — a leather bookmark embossed with ‘Hopetoun House’ and a picture of the ornate house itself. I loved reading and couldn’t check books out of the library fast enough, so why not have a nice bookmark for those books?
Then disaster struck. My mother said no. She reasoned that we were going to visit many places and this was only our first stop, so it was better to wait until I found something I really wanted. I’m sure I used every cajoling method my seven-year-old mind knew, but it didn’t work.
It seemed like every place we went from then on sold leather bookmarks, and I’m sure I pointed them all out to my parents. I’m not sure who came up with the idea first, but the family eventually decided that I could get one leather bookmark at every destination we visited, provided that it was the only souvenir I got (aside from postcards).
I was perfectly happy with that. I collected occasional other items during our many other trips to Britain, but leather bookmarks were a constant. I bought them from street vendors in London, from distilleries in Scotland, and from castles in Wales. I even gave one of my favourites from our first trip (from Lincoln Cathedral) to my dad, who used it in every book he read until both the book and bookmark disappeared on a doctor’s visit in 2006.
I often returned to America with a thick stack of bookmarks. I kept them in a pile in my bookcase until the pile began to dwarf the heights of most of my books. I went through phases — sometimes, they were ordered by the date I acquired them, and sometimes they were ordered by colour. It helped to keep my memories strong of all the places I’d been lucky enough to go to at such a young age.
Eventually I settled on displaying them in two large binders designed for free-mounting photos. There’s over 120 pages with three bookmarks per page! I used to love thumbing through all of them, but sadly, I had to leave them in America when I moved to Australia. It might be ok to bring them over, but I’d be devastated if they were taken away and destroyed by customs.
I still collect bookmarks today. Whenever I visit somewhere new in Britain, I visit the gift shop because I know they’ll have one. They seem to be very much a British thing because you only occasionally see them in other countries — I have a few from scattered locations in the US, a few more from New Zealand, and a couple more from Australia. My family in England still sends me bookmarks from places they’ve visited, and I was even given a bookmark from the Endeavour replica (thanks Michelle!).
The collection has branched out a bit though — I have a fuzzy bookmark made out of “kangaroo fur”, one made solely of paua shell, and another that my aunt hand-wove. I don’t seek out non-leather bookmarks, but if they are interesting and meaningful to me, I’ll add them to the collection.
So, all in all, is it weird to own more leather bookmarks than I own books to read? Possibly. But is it any more odd than owning more fridge magnets than you have fridge space? To me, both collections serve the same purpose — they are a reminder of the wonderful times I’ve had and the amazing places that I’ve visited.
Plus, it means I should never lose my place in a book again.
Do you collect anything on your travels? If so, what do you collect and how do you display your collection when you get home?