Christmas Cards

In between two books I have been asked to review (one of which is Mohammad Sarwar's autobiography which is due out later this month and which I  wrote up this morning for  "The Herald" ) I have been reading Josephine Tey's  The Daughter of Time 

I noticed it because it keeps featuring on these "best of" lists that newspapers love -  in the  crime fiction category -  and it is certainly fascinating, if a little dated.

Anyway, the point of  all this is that there is a character in it who observes that history is best known not from accounts, but from account books.  

He means that it is the detail of small things that builds up a truthful picture of how we live rather than stories told later by those who may not have been there.

I had just thought about that when I walked past our annual display of Christmas cards, of which this is part.  Not only would each be an  primary source for a part of our lives (a long friendship, a key  work relationship, a distant relative, a former neighbour ) but even how they are hung is  something that historians may never note but which varies in every house you visit.  

We use plastic hangers bought at Woolworths in Lanark  more than a quarter of a century ago having seen them in Fay 's house - Fay being Cailean's child minder when he was an infant.   They are still almost as good as new and are brought into service every Christmas,  these days hanging in the conservatory from garden canes !