THE CREATION OF A UNIQUE FACSIMILE - LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION OF BOOKS

DATING FROM 1912 UNTIL THE 1976

This marvellous facsimile depicting the Travel Journals of Allan J Laidlaw was meticulous copied from the original travel notebook, gifted to AJ when he was a little boy, during Christmas 1934, by his father.

The actual story as recalled by AJ himself is slightly different. His maternal grandfather purchased a beautiful leather notebook as a gift for him, for Christmas, when he was 10 years old. However, AJ’s father saw the beautiful book and decided he could make much better use of it and gave AJ a plainer, smaller notebook instead, with a hessian spine and a cardboard cover.

AJ whilst thinking (even at 10 years of age) that he would much rather have had the beautiful leather book, dutifully kept the little notebook for many years and first started to use it in 1937, to describe his travels around the globe.

Initially, he hadn’t intended to continue using the notebook after the first few years, he had always planned to purchase a more formal and elegant writing journal. He’d never forgotten the original gift from his grandfather and kept an image in his ‘minds eye’ of the book that got away! However, for whatever reason this didn’t happen and the plain, little notebook remained at his side whenever he went travelling for the next 40 years.

The original book is now more than 87 years old and in an extremely delicate and fragile state. With the passing of time it has taken on a great significance to become a very special piece of family history for Allan J Laidlaw and it has always been his wish that the journal could produced as a limited edition book for his current family and future generations to view. He wanted something that would remain for posterity.

And so it was in early 2020 we were commissioned to make this wish a reality.

This little book has been lovingly and faithfully reproduced, each page being exactingly copied with all the charm and character that an 87 year old notebook collects along its journey. Including the colour distortions which have occurred throughout the journal after so long. Some pages only had the number at the top and a few words written on them. In these cases the relevant parts of the page have been reproduced and made to look like luggage labels paginated correctly in between full pages of copy.

We were given a reasonable degree of artistic license to interpret the travel journal, as long as we maintained the integrity and feeling of the original. At all times we bore this in mind. We also had to pay particular attention to the preparations/requirements needed for photographing something so aged and delicate. The greatest care had to be taken when handling the original - it is now beginning to fall apart - so as not to damage it further.

As an extra special treat each one of the limited edition books created contain a selection of wonderful original postcards and photographs, strategically placed throughout.

In the case of the post cards, a lot of these predate the start of the journals and were memorabilia souvenirs posted to AJ’s family - some before AJ was born - by his Great Uncle George Laidlaw from his travels around the world, before World War 1. Some of the earliest cards have post marks dating from 1912!

As these and the photographs are all originals, it considerably enhances the uniqueness of the limited edition. Simply put the books are works of art!

To present such a creation with the correct degree of reverence and aesthetic quality, which would befit it, we designed a travelling case which accentuated the feeling of travel.

Each book comes with its own individually designed, heavyweight, corrugated cardboard box, lined with paper straw and decorated with 3 original postcards on the inside lid and a selection of travel luggage labels across the outside of the top lid.

The books are tied together with satin ribbon bows and a message from Allan J Laidlaw also accompanies each edition.

The project was completed by Christmas 2020. It remains truly one of the loveliest and most poignant commissions we have ever received.

Enjoy

Christine and Alastair