Another Filofax added to my collection

My wife Alison was sorting through her late mother's papers yesterday, as part of our pre-move to France sort out. Yesterday, we started tackling the garage. We have lived here for 24 years so you can imagine it is quite a task! I went off to the tip with a car full of rubbish and was feeling pleased with myself but tired by about 4pm. Coffee and biscuit time...

So whilst we were having coffee Alison passed me a Filofax that she had found amongst her mother's papers, all conversation ceased at that point. I opened it and turned the pages. Mary (my late MiL) had used this organiser as her address book and notebook.

It wasn't a very expensive organiser as I recall, it was bought for her in about 1986/1987. So it is a 'Made in England' one, labelled as OC 1/2 1/2 being the ring size, but so far I've not been able to discover which 'model' OC is.

It is a board construction with quite a hard wearing covering, but as you can see from the photos it lays perfectly flat. The cover had been written on, but with a little gentle restoration I managed to remove most of the writing.  You might just be able to faintly see it on the photos. 

The address pages are the old Ref 194 pages from the mid 1980's, I've used these myself, they have Name, Address and Phone, six entries per side.

At the back of the organiser there are a couple of blank ruled pages. These look a lot older than the organiser it self. The are labelled BCM/FILOFAX LONDON FORM 9 in a style I've never seen before. I wouldn't like to put a date on the age of these pages, but I'm guessing they might be late 1940's early 1950's just judging by the typeface used.

There was also a page for postage stamps. Again this looks a similar age to the notepages. Alison believes that these older pages came out of an old Filofax her late father Charles had, or may be bought in his antique shop in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

I love the single letter a-z index they are the 1985 AZ1ACE, I don't think there is a modern equivalent they all appear to be two letters per tab.

I will most probably use this organiser in the same way my late mother in law did, as an address book/telephone numbers list with some note paper in the back and leave it beside the main telephone. We have had a similar book next to the phone for years, but it's time the information was transferred to a more flexible system.

I thought about putting a photograph on the cover to cover up the writing, but on reflection I think that would mask its age and detract from its history.

Through Filofax we have another chapter to our family history.

I will be uploading the pictures on to the Flickr group later this morning.

Steve