Thirty Five Years Ago...

I got a little nostalgic a few days ago putting up the Christmas tree and our minimal decorations, a lot of which we have owned for many years... and it doesn't seem like a year ago since we were last going through this exercise, how quick time passes these days!

Thirty five years ago... or Christmas 1986 to save you working it out! It's a long time ago to try and remember things. For some people it's a life time! 

Christmas 1986 as far as I can recall was when my heavily pregnant wife Alison gave me my Filofax Winchester. Our first (and only) baby was due in the New Year... he arrived 10 days late. 

I had picked up the Filofax Product List on one of my visits to Chisholms shop in Kingsway in London and I can recall trying to work out what all the different inserts were and the differences between them. 

The full catalogue I later picked up helped immensely in helping to choose what inserts to get. I think I had chosen the Winchester purely on price, there were no review sites or internet to look at! 

I might have made a short list of what I was interested in getting. Their shop had virtually the whole range of inserts and organisers, it was wonderful. Sadly they don't appear to be still in business. 

I still have some of those inserts from 1986/1987! I still have my diary inserts from back then, currently resident in my Filofax Winchester 4CLF7/8BK - 4 pockets, Calf Leather 7/8" rings in black leather. 

I don't think I totally filled my organiser, but I made the classic beginners mistake I suppose of putting all the inserts in a pack in to the organiser. Who needs 25 blank To-Do lists and 25 Photo Record sheets!! I later realised to only carry a few of each type and keep the rest to hand in my briefcase in an envelope. And 20 or so years later I re-discovered this envelope and the inserts inside! 

Before Filofax (BF?) I think I used just any pocket diary that came my way. After reading a Sunday paper article about Filofax and how people where using them and how you could fill them with the information you needed I thought... I need one of those! It appealed to me to only have to update the diary pages each year and not have to rewrite all of my addresses from one diary to another! 

When I look back at what I was writing in my Filofax back in 1987 in some senses I wasn't using it as a planner, more like a journal I suppose! I used a fold out year planner more for planning. 

Between late 1985 and the summer of 1988 I worked in Central London, commuting there and back on the train each day. My job at the time was associated with planning and assigning frequencies for VHF FM broadcast transmitters through out the whole of UK. I used maps extensively and lists at work each day. 

I eventually built up my own lists in my Filofax of all the transmitters and their frequencies and locations. I often attended meetings at BBC Engineering which at the time was located at Kingswood Warren in Surrey or at IBA in Winchester. So having the information to hand was important. 

A few years later I went digital! Well sort of! A Casio Digital Diary with all of 64kb of storage. The batteries would last about 18 months to two years. I would keep alerts and birthdays and some addresses and phone numbers on there. It's light and slim, unlike the Psion 5Mx I 'upgraded' to a few years later, but that could do a whole lot more! 

I think I should challenge myself to going back to Personal size, my Winchester and my Casio Digital Diary for audible alerts for a month! Now where did I put the instruction book for the Casio....