You'll have to excuse this highly personal post. It's not personal in an embarrassing kind of way; I'm not going to tell you anything gruesome that you'll wish I hadn't mentioned. It's just it's about stuff that means a lot to me but probably nothing to you. You see, I found this booklet recently. It was to do with maps and I haven't found anything really interesting map-wise for a while and that bit of Helvetica looked really good, tightly set and I liked the line. It's a recruitment booklet from 1968; the Civil Service were looking for cartographic professionals.
I didn't notice the details, just enough to make me buy it (it was on ebay...so all I saw was a thumbnail). Later though, when it arrived and I could look at it properly I was extremely surprised to see that the map used for the cover showed the village where we used to live:
Rothley. That's where we lived just before moving to
NI. On closer examination, the map, which as you can see wraps over to the back, prompted lots of strong and timely memories.
We lived at the northern edge of the village, just up that road there. Over to the western edge is the really great
Great Central Railway (just past
where we had our wedding reception). Into the centre of the village and that's where
the chip shop is (great chips!) and there's
the church we got married in. A little bit further across and that's where Pezza has
his studio. A mile or so onto the back cover and that's
Swithland, where we saw all those enormous vegetables (huge onions, the size of your head!). And
Cropston is kind of south west of Rothley and where we would grab a pub lunch during our "courting" days (and where the crippled children used to go for their holidays). Then there's the woods that were ace for a Sunday afternoon walk and
Woodhouse Eves, where the posh people live.
We're heading back there in a few weeks and are planning to hook up with old friends we haven't seen for years. It's going to be brilliant, can't wait and seeing all this has made it all the more vivid and exciting.
I'm not sure quite why this particular snippet of map was chosen for the cover. I thought that perhaps it was where their offices were but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. Then I thought that perhaps Rothley was
the most central point in England, but it's not. It's not far off but it's far enough off to dismiss that theory. Who knows?
It's incidental but inside was a folded slip of paper which outlines prospective salaries for the positions they were looking to fill. Makes interesting reading.
