Pam Alison Knits

Here is something I saw on my recent travels and I think you can see why I was captivated by it. This was part of a display at Harewood House in Yorkshire and it was owned by Princess Mary, Princess of Wales and Countess of Harewood.

At first, from the top, it looks very much like a vintage Filofax, then you notice the chain and you wonder, is it a bag? Viewed edge-on it reveals a framed “purse” within the cover, very much in keeping with the built-in purses I’ve seen in handbags from the mid-20th century. But look closely and rather than a ring mechanism holding pages such as you’d see in a Filofax, this has elastic to hold the notebooks in place. So, it’s a form of Traveller’s Notebook. The side view shows a nice slim pen or pencil slotted behind the strap closure. As it is displayed with booklets from Royal Ascot, I presume it was primarily used at race meetings rather than being an “everyday carry”.

How intriguing.

The Traveller’s Notebook that stationery fans are familiar with nowadays started to appear in 2006. I must admit, I’d assumed it was a new idea – a way to get around the inconveniences of ring-planners whilst retaining some of the flexibility. Seems there’s nothing new about it at all.

I seem to recall that Franklin Covey (the USA equivalent of the British Filofax) added a shoulder strap to a ring-planner cover many years ago, and this is slightly reminiscent of that as well.

I must admit that I envy the clasp purse section most of all. Imagine if our Filofaxes had such a thing. Yes, it would make writing on the left-hand page a nightmare, but the romance of it!

The Traveller’s Notebook is a format I’ve never tried myself. Although many avow to it being more practical than ring systems, there are a few things which put me off. First, Travellers Notebook covers tend to just be a single thickness of leather and to my mind that equals floppy. Second, I watch people showing their covers with two or three notebooks in place, and they just look like they’d be even less easy to write in than a ring planner. Again, elastics just say floppy to me – if the notebooks are going to move even a little bit then I don’t want to know.

So, I’d never want this item for myself (which is fortunate, because I don’t think there can be many around). For interest, though, it’s well worth a look.