:: meanders ::
souvenirs from the space-time continuum

I had carefully sorted the books so that every one could be put back on its shelf precisely where Churchill had left it. This had not been difficult to achieve. I simply adapted Churchill's own habits. Whenever he removed a book from a shelf he would stick one of his children's stuffed toys piglets, bears, etc into the gap to mark the spot. I put a piglet or a bear at each end of a shelf and wrote 'piglet' or 'bear' on slips of paper tucked into the first and last books in a stack. Thanks to Randolph the arrangement of the books today does not correspond to the way Churchill had very specifically set them out to be of most practical use to him for reference. And legions of piglets and bears would be needed to mark the places where his favourite and most annotated books are now missing.

excerpt from Sorting Out Sir Winston, Chartwell 1966, by Christopher Long, journalist, and written in 1998 but a jewel I only just today discovered.