OK, so perhaps classics is pushing it a little bit too far, but whilst leaning back in my office chair I saw this pile of books that my eldest son has ‘finished with’. Music in the Meadow is 40 years old (was given to me in 1970), The Pictorial History of Aircraft was bought for me when I was around 9 (according to the inscription my Nana always insisted on writing) and The Ever Changing Woodland was published when there was woodland to change and the countryside wasn’t just a strip of land between motorways. Whilst the annuals in the photo are recent, both The Dandy and The Beano were also regular deliveries from Santa for me and my Father before me when he was a boy.

The image is nothing special, but it made me think about the printed word, the feel of a book, the smell of a book store. None of which a Kindle will ever be able to match. In spite of electronic everything, there’s something about the smell of a well thumbed novel, or the way a glossy page of photos turns that hopefully will continue to live on.