Wondrous handkerchief

Wondrous handkerchief Originally uploaded by Sibad.

We are leaving for the Highlands in minutes, hurrying to pack all the things I think we'll need. I found this in a drawer - the kind kept hidden by escaping POWs and others who might need to disguise their means of navigation. It's over 50 years old and still perfect, in silk. I think it was Dad's but it might have been Jack's. [4 August 2007 in Scotland: I told my mother about this handkerchief last night at supper. She got up from the table and brought another handkerchief covering mid and southern France, Spain and the western Mediterranean. The other two in the set would have been of northern Europe and were kept by a fighter pilot in the RAF called Bobby Jeff, my aunt's fiancé, who disappeared in action over the English Channel in 1940. The wedding presents were laid out in my grandmother's cottage in Essex when the postman came with the telegram. My daughter, eating with us, said she'd seen one rolled inside a pencil with a tiny compass at one end hidden beneath an eraser being discussed on 'The Antiques Roadshow'. The speaker wouldn't take it out as he'd never be able to roll it up tight enough to put it back in the hollow pencil.]