STRANGE HOBBIES

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3178, 14 May 1932, Page 6

STRANGE HOBBIES

18,000 TRAIN TICKETS,

The advice of Sir Humphrey Rolleston to everybody is to cultivate a hobby or alternative occupation side by side with the main 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 50 years ago.

The collection seen included: 18,821 railway tickets from almost every country in the world; more than 1500 first editions of magazines and newspapers; twenty or thirty stoolball bats made on board ship, in Tokio, at Reykjavik (Iceland), and at Vladivostok and elsewhere. The bats were given to Mr Grantham and autographed to mark his introduction of the game to people who were strangers to it.

Mr Grantham said: “There 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 are not stranded. And sometimes they run well 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 birthplace of the Prime Minister, sent him by Miss Ishbell MacDonald, and another he prizes was brought to him from Mexico in 1888.