I fell for the charms of bookmarks long ago, and still vividly recall receiving my first as a child: it was in the shape of a caterpillar. I was so enthralled by it that I spent longer looking at it than I did reading the book it sat inside. Since then I've always thought they were rather nice, and no visit to a museum is complete without a quick mooch around the gift shop to see if they've any on offer.
However, my fondness for bookmarks is mere fair-weather stuff compared to that of some people. Since they first came to prominence in the 16th century (when Elizabeth I became a fan of the early, parchment bookmarks), to the emergence of silk and embroidered versions in the 18th century, bookmarks have attracted many a devotee. A Dutchman called Frank Divendal owns a world-record collection of them, more than 80,000 in total. Those long winter months must fly past in his house.
He's not the only obsessive. Later this month there is an exhibition of bookmarks in Germany, including a day set aside for visitors to swap their own collections. A gathering of bookmark nuts in Germany: one can only imagine what that will look like. For those who can't make the exhibition, the internet has many websites full of images for bookmark-fanciers to drool over. In Yorkshire there is even a store dedicated to the things, its website gleefully claims "Bookmarks make perfect gifts!"
Not that you even have to use an actual bookmark to keep your place. As a teenager, I went through a period of using improvised props instead, in an ill-judged attempt to make a series of statements to the world. To this end, I used: the letter my school sent my parents when I was suspended (message: I'm a rebel!); a £20 note (message: Get me everyone! I must be loaded!); bus tickets and till receipts (message: I'm poor and cool!). Luckily, nobody was paying the slightest attention.
However, if what someone uses as a bookmark is their way of telling the world who they are, then I fear all the more for the strange man who recently accosted me on a night bus to tell me that he uses a dead rat as his bookmark. Despite my protestations that I believed him, he proudly produced the flattened rodent from his bag.
Returning to more conventional bookmarks, I have sometimes been asked why I so like them. For so long it was a mystery to me, but in latter years I've begun to come to terms with the most likely explanation: well, they're not entirely unphallic are they? It's an enduring, possessive love: in recent years, the internet has tried to steal the rights to the word "bookmark". Hands off, guys. I saw it first.
