What Margery Saw
Catherine Lloyd fingered through the post on the silver salver on the hallway table.
“There’ll be nothin’ there for you miss,” said Phyllis the maid with a disapproving look. She didn’t like snoops, and Miss Catherine was certainly a snoop.
“What nonsense,” Catherine thought. “I’m twelve now: practically a lady. Why shouldn’t I have my own correspondence?” And she kept flicking until she came to a postcard of Babes in the Wood illustrated by Hilda Cowham. When she flipped it over, she saw it was from her school chum Margery Pullham who was on holiday with her family in Reigate.
She snatched the postcard and hurried upstairs to read it in the old nursery, stopping en route to grab her rather worse for wear silver looking glass from her dresser in her bedroom. Clearing the table of games, she pulled out her mother’s old writing slope and placed the postcard on its worn red velvet surface and then held the mirror up to the card.
“When Margery writes in mirror writing, it’s bound to be something exciting!” Catherine said. “So, what did Margery see?”
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.
This week the theme, “reflection” was chosen by Beverley, BlueberryAsh.
I collect antique postcards which can be collectable for what one finds on the back as much as the front, such as this example of “mirror writing”: the only example I have, which can only be read in the reflection of a mirror!
Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher.
The mirror is a sterling silver and was made by Hasset and Harper Silversmiths of Birmingham in 1929. The writing slope is a black lacquered Victorian papier mache example with a red velvet lined slope. The ink bottle is original to the writing slope.
What Margery Saw
Catherine Lloyd fingered through the post on the silver salver on the hallway table.
“There’ll be nothin’ there for you miss,” said Phyllis the maid with a disapproving look. She didn’t like snoops, and Miss Catherine was certainly a snoop.
“What nonsense,” Catherine thought. “I’m twelve now: practically a lady. Why shouldn’t I have my own correspondence?” And she kept flicking until she came to a postcard of Babes in the Wood illustrated by Hilda Cowham. When she flipped it over, she saw it was from her school chum Margery Pullham who was on holiday with her family in Reigate.
She snatched the postcard and hurried upstairs to read it in the old nursery, stopping en route to grab her rather worse for wear silver looking glass from her dresser in her bedroom. Clearing the table of games, she pulled out her mother’s old writing slope and placed the postcard on its worn red velvet surface and then held the mirror up to the card.
“When Margery writes in mirror writing, it’s bound to be something exciting!” Catherine said. “So, what did Margery see?”
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.
This week the theme, “reflection” was chosen by Beverley, BlueberryAsh.
I collect antique postcards which can be collectable for what one finds on the back as much as the front, such as this example of “mirror writing”: the only example I have, which can only be read in the reflection of a mirror!
Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher.
The mirror is a sterling silver and was made by Hasset and Harper Silversmiths of Birmingham in 1929. The writing slope is a black lacquered Victorian papier mache example with a red velvet lined slope. The ink bottle is original to the writing slope.