Borrowing Borrow

Farrs,
Sutton,
Nr Pulborough

Sunday

My Dear Jack,

You will no doubt be disppointed to find that this beautiful parcel of books is not a handsome present but more of a repaid loan - borrowed Borrow, for which I am extremely grateful. When you eventually read my estimate of the Gypsy gent I hope that you won't regret that you helped me to make it.

I am looking forward greedily to revisiting the glimpses of Lovell's Farm - it will be too late, I'm afraid, to pick up windfall apples or plant tomato-plants by the wrong method, but that will leave all the more time for chatter.

Meanwhile,

Love to both you you

from both of us

and many thanks again for Borrow.

Martin

I found this letter between the pages of a second-hand book I bought from a dingy bookshop in Charing Cross, George Borrow's The Bible in Spain. I'd been trying to track down a copy for some time, but the book was long out of print. It's a fascinating tale about Borrow's journey through Spain at time when travel was perilous, and even more so because of Borrow's clandestine mission which struck right at the heart of the hegemony of the Catholic church. He had copies of the bible in Spanish to give away. Before that the only people who could read the bible were the priests: the bible was in Latin, a language ordinary folks didn't speak. To put direct access to the words of God into the hands of lay people was to give them a power that the church would never again be able to take back.

I wanted the book though, because it was another piece of a jigsaw I'd been trying to complete. I was fascinated to learn about the Romani people (gypsies). Borrow, the original "Romani rye" (gentleman) certainly had access to secret inside information about the Romanichal (British gypsies)- some have speculated that he might have been romani himself. While Borrow was travelling across the Iberian peninsula, he tracked down local gypsies and researched their language (he was an incredible linguist and spoke something like 28 languages fluently) and chronicled their hardships.

So, a letter between the pages dating from 1899. Dear Jack is John Lochhead RBA - he his name is signed the flyleaf. I did some searching on the internet this and found that he was a very well known artist in Victorian times, though his paintings of rural scenes are too chocolate-boxy for my taste. I wonder if Martin's article was ever published.

It's nice to know who owned the book before you did. To feel the pleasure of reading passed on.

New books are lovely, but antiquarian books with the patina of previous ownership are special indeed. And if ever I am rich enough I will hoard them.