Hi all,

Ive just been reading your posts regarding travelling journals with interest. Im new to all this (fountain pens and forums for like minded people, Ive kept my own journal for over 15 yrs) and as such am not quite sure what one is exactly. Im guessing you are going to send journals to all who join, so that people can write snippets in them and send them on?

Anyway, I've just read this amazing book called "Can Any Mother Help Me?" Its about a group of educated, largely middle-class women in WW2 Britain, who having got married and had to give up the careers (women had to in those days) were bored and frustrated at being "merely" housewives. Following an advertisement one woman placed in a mother/baby magazine, a circulating "magazine" (although it was actually what we would describe as a journal) was kept between them for over 50 years!!! It was all kept incredibly secret and the women had non-de-plumes, so that they all felt very safe talking about even the most intimate things.

The most touching thing about the book (originally used as a basis for a Master's Degree thesis) was that you "saw" these women's lives change as their children grew up, they grew old, loved ones passed away etc.
It is truly an amazing book. I laughed and cried freely more than once.

Cheers
T

I've also read about a kind of correspondence that was popular around the '50s called round robins. The article profiled this one group of friends that had kept one going from decades. I think the idea was that, as the round robin circulated, each member added a letter to the envelope and read the others. When that member's turn came around again, she took out her old letter and inserted a new one. But it's been a couple years, so don't quote me on that!

Long before I joined FPN, I'd seen a fancy kit composed of a notebook and pretty envelopes, meant for just two correspondents to circulate between them. I remember it occurred to me at the time that I couldn't think of anyone who would actually keep such a correspondence going. Thanks to FPN, I now know lots of people who do. Tawanda, there's a link that I've misplaced that leads to a site where you can see some completed FPN journals. A search on "traveling journal" (or someone with more organized bookmarks) might turn it up. One small, mailable notebook is circulated from person to person (about 4-6 people are in a group, in the method I'm most familiar with) until the book is filled.

Thanks for sharing! I'm going to be checking out that book. It sounds very, very insightful and thoughtful.