STRANGE HOBBIES

Evening Star, Issue 21099, 11 May 1932, Page 5

STRANGE HOBBIES

KING’S COUNSEL’S COLLECTIONS OVER 18,000 TRAIN TICKETS. The advice of Sir Humplmey Rollestoa to everybody is to cultivate a hobby or alternative occupation side by side with the plain work of life has aroused interest in Britain (says a London newspaper). Distinguished men have many curious recreations. The writer went recently to spend a fascinating hour with one of London’s authorities on hobbies, Mr W. W. Grantham, K.C., son of the late Mr Justice Grantham. - His flat in Paper Buildings, Temple, contains two or three collections of exceptional interest, and he is as ardent an upholder of hobbies as, when, a Harrow schoolboy, he started fifty years ago. The collections seen included: 18,821' railway tickets from almost every country in the world; more than 1,500 first editions of magazines and newspapers; twenty or thirty stoolball bats made on board ship, in Tokio, at Reykjavik (Iceland), and ,at Vladivostock and elsewhere. The bats were given to Mr Grantham and autographed to mark the introduction of the game to people who were strangers to it. Mr Grantham said: “These hobbies have undoubtedly enriched my life. They take one’s mind off everyday work, and, in my case, the railway tickets bring back pleasant memories of my, travels. The advantage of having several hobbies is that if one fails you ara not stranded. And sometimes they run well together. For instance, I have often collected a railway ticket and a first number of a magazine on the same journey. “ I began the ticket collection as a schoolboy—no doubt partly out of the fun of trying to get past the barrier without giving my ticket up. In later years my sons have carried the collection on. “ I have travelled widely in Europe, America, and the Far East, and my friends—and strangers, too—have sent me tickets. “ Here.” Mr Grantham said, smiling,- “ is a ticket to Hell ’’ —actually from’ Hommelvik to Hell, both places in Norway. He has two tickets to Lossiemouth, Scotland, the birthplaee_ of the Prime Minister, sent him by Miss Ishbel MacDonald, and another he prizes was brought bv him from Mexico in 1888.