Losing Place

When I was a lad, I accumulated bookmarks like a carpet gathers dust, acquiring them at regular intervals throughout my childhood. At one stage, I probably had more bookmarks than books. They were an inevitable by-product of school trips to the kind of places every little corner of the world has; the ones that are designed for the sole, specific purpose of boring the shit out of schoolkids. Farms, factories, Roman forts, model villages, zoos, castles: you name it, we got dragged there under duress, plastering the bus with vomit en route and wreaking unbridled mayhem once we arrived.

The gift shop was the only mitigating factor in any of these jaunts, and even then, most of us couldn't afford the fancy scale-models and glittering trinkets on offer. We'd all invariably end up with either bookmarks or keyrings. And as I didn't have any keys at that age, the choice was conveniently narrowed for me.

As fast as I accrued them, they got lost. It's reached the stage where most of my childhood bookmarks are long gone, and along with them the memories of all the places I went that I didn't want to go to in the first place. But in their stead, a girl I used to live with - who had the same habit as a child - gave me her own collection of childhood bookmarks a few years ago. Consequently, I feel like I'm in possession of someone else's memories. If I close my eyes tightly and concentrate hard enough, I'm sure I can remember visiting the Llechwedd Slate Caverns, and the Ysgol John Bright Centenary, and the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. (As you may have guessed, the donator of these bookmarks was from somewhere slightly to the left of England).

So many bookmarks, and yet somehow, I've lost my place.