In the spirit of William Gilpin, the eighteenth century clergyman and drawing master, Peter Thomas has shared his travel observations in book form. Gilpin would take tours looking for picturesque views. When an appropriate site was found, he described it in such a personal way that it could transport the reader through time and space to the spot. In Bikupan (Swedish for "writing paper"), Peter Thomas takes us with him to the Lessebo hand paper mill in Sweden. "We arrived after the end of the [tourist] season. They still allowed visitors but there were no tours. We also arrived at lunch time and they were closed. Undaunted we made sandwiches and waited." Once inside, Thomas guides us along the "beautiful maze of machinery," beginning with the stuff chest and ending with the cylinder drying machine. Enthusiasm swells as the author's heart seemingly melts at the couching table, which is hydraulically operated. "As the post gets higher, the coucher just pushes a button to lower the table so that he never needs to bend over further than is comfortable." The Lessebo hand paper mill, founded in 1693, is one of the European mills which continue to make handmade paper. It now produces five tons of paper a year, which is primarily writing and archival paper and which contrasts its earlier production. "In 1748, the mill turned out 90 reams of writing paper, 40 reams of printing paper, 200 reams of gray paper, 100 reams of tobacco paper, 10 reams of cartridge paper and 20 reams of cartridge-tube paper, which adds up to an annual output of merely 460 reams. Lessebo, in other words, was one of the least significant mills in Sweden." The author wisely places Lessebo in the broader context of papermaking's history in Sweden. The pleasure of reading this book quiets the questions it raises. The author states that early Swedish paper was "decidedly inferior in quality and consistency when compared with French and Dutch paper of the day." How were the quality and consistency inferior? Was it from furnish selection? beating? stuff preparation? sheet formation? But one doesn't stop to ask questions, for the narrative holds the reader as if the author were seated nearby, sharing his travels for the first time. Even if inexpensive photocopies of the book's text were made available, this handsome handmade book still would be in demand. It holds nicely in the hand, opens effortlessly, and fans-out beautifully. Thomas's handmade light-blue text subtly contrasts the warm tones of the six specimens of handmade paper made at the Lessebo mill. Thomas explains where the samples came from: They took me into the loft of the mill. This room was not a traditional drying loft, for there were no windows, but it was used for drying felts and storage. There I was shown a shelf full of old paper. Some of this he bought. Like Gilpin's illustrated travel diaries, Bikupan is a very personal memoir. Peter Thomas's documentation of traditional hand papermaking has been important both for paper historians and hand papermakers. Over the years he has responded to the genuine need for making pictorial, written, video, and audio records of mill workers. This book is a fitting addition to his works. Another important contribution about twentieth century hand papermaking is an interview between Peter Thomas and retired British vatman Harry Glanville, entitled Beer Will Help Your Shake. This may sound like an in-house joke, but it actually comes from the text: "Oh, I can give you a story," said Glanville. "When I was about to go [to] Canada, I went up to Bill Rivers. I said, Bill, you gotta come have a drink with me. This is true. 'No,' he said, 'I can't,' he said, 'I'm working late,' Oh, I says, it's your last chance. Anyway, they all left off, all the vats crews and set up for a gallon of beer. Bill says, 'I'm not going to get drunk. Noooo.' We had about six gallons of beer, and we wheeled poor old Bill Rivers home in a wheel barrow. That was the very last drink in Wookey Hole. Of course you weren't a papermaker unless you could drink beer. Oh no. I knew a vat man who used to have two bottles of beer in his cistern every morning. And I knew Sam Cox's uncle that worked in Wookey Hole, on double elephant, he used to drink a quart of cider before breakfast." Peter inquired, "So beer will help your shake?" "Oh yes," responded Glanville. Levity is balanced with information. Earlier in the book, Thomas asked what made for a proper stroke. Glanville replied: "You get that yourself. That's entirely up to you. See, I've known men that served seven years apprenticeship and didn't have a stroke, couldn't make a sheet... The wave goes forward, see? And when it gets on the end, you give it a flip, it goes right across the sheet. That's what makes it even, see? When you're working at the vat you stand loose. Absolutely ... there's no use standing stiff because you're like this, you see, you got to let yourself go." Glanville began his seven year apprenticeship about 1910 and through it earned a "Card of Freedom," which allowed him to move from mill to mill. He was fortunate, he could "do the three jobs" of formation, couching, and laying. Glanville's comments are refreshing. Rather than the didactic story of what was done in hand papermaking, we hear what was experienced: "You see, we used to go in six in the morning and go like the devil all day. Work all day. No tea breaks or anything like that. There'd be our breakfast and our dinner, then. You can tell your time by your work. You don't even look for a clock. If you've got a good coucher, you work in conjunction with each other, you see? ... Why, we used to do what we called a lump. That's a post. Twenty-five minutes we used to take for foolscap." Glanville shares such details as preferences for different water temperatures for different papers and his adjustments to stuff to make particular weights of paper. He shares the only way a gruff foreman was able to compliment him, which was by saying that the girls in the finishing room didn't seem to know Glanville (for there was no need for them to see him, his paper was so perfect). Beer was appropriately printed on handmade paper made at Wookey Hole, one of the mills where Glanville worked. You Can't Make Paper from a Loofa is another interview but is quite different from the preceding one. In it Rigby Graham shares his recollections of John Mason, the bookbinder and hand papermaker with whom he worked at the Leicester College of Art and several of whose books he illustrated. Unfortunately the immediacy, vibrancy, and involvement of the papermaker, so striking in Glanville's words, is missing in this work. The interview is quite passive: And at the back of the garage there was a little room where he had a big press. He was going to do his paper in there, and he must have done some. People assumed he was still making paper there [after he left the mill at the College of Art], and I think he might have done the odd bit, but he didn't do much. He had this enormous stack that this other bloke, Frank, had made for him. However, for anyone interested in knowing more about Mason, Loofa does offer insights. It chronicles his papermaking career, which started "in 1953 or 1954;" explains his choice for making 12x8 paper (it was the size of his little nipping presses and pressboards which he already had for bookbinding); and presents some of his papermaking equipment, although much detail is missing: "See, there are his moulds. Mason made a lot of these little screens, ... He made some out of cloth and some out of wire and they weren't really satisfactory." Loofa's strength is in its rendering of Mason's personality. He comes through as "a cheerful little chap," who was very charismatic" in a laid-back, relaxed way. Mason's light touch on life is neatly reflected in his comments on books: ...he used to say, 'You don't have to read books, for goodness sake. You could sit on a book, you could use it as a door stop.' He said, 'I like looking at books and flipping through the pictures and handling them. All this business about books being there to read, books are there to read but that's only one of their uses.' He liked them as ornaments, he liked having them about. Designed, printed, and bound by Peter and Donna Thomas, this book is very nice to have about, particularly with its handmade paper boards and Coptic binding with three small diamonds, stamped in gold, on the cover.
