National Geographic...

Back then it was called The National Geographic Magazine. I started reading it in the school library when, instead of a full colour photograph, a border of oak leaves surrounded some lines of serif text describing the content of each issue. It took me everywhere, to the jungles of Borneo, the bottom of the Pacific, even to Mars. I’d pore over it for hours, marvelling at the incredible artistry of the photographs, the detail of the wonderful descriptions. I felt like an explorer sometimes as I climbed through the pages and up Everest in my mind or crossed the murky waters of Lake Titicaca in my imaginary reed canoe.

I learnt more about geography from those magazines than ever I did from Ronnie Moore our geography teacher with his dry picture-free text books and ancient map of the world which showed the British Empire, even though the Empire was long gone. Yes, my lunchtimes were never boring and you would usually find me up the Amazon or wandering across the Gobi.

Much later, long after I’d left school, a miracle happened. For no reason at all the National Geographic started tuning up at my home in darkest Birmingham. At first I though it might be a promotion, but when they kept on coming I began to wonder if maybe it was an error, a mistake by the Post Office or The Society themselves – well, with a circulation of around four million readers it was perfectly possible. It didn’t stop me ripping off the polythene wrapper and devouring the magazine though. I really looked forward to seeing each yellow-edged, glossy, full colour, cover when it popped through my letterbox every month, even though I didn’t know where they came from.

Eventually though, some light was shed on my phantom subscription. An old mate of my dad’s had given him the National Geographic as a Christmas gift and my dad, who only read the sports pages of his paper, had transferred the subscription over to me and then forgot to tell me. Well, I didn’t mind at all and for a few years I was surrounded by giant pandas, visited Vesuvius, New England in winter, dived down to see the Mary Rose; I even used some of the articles as inspiration for a series of paintings of grinning American farmers.

Then one day the Geographic stopped arriving. I waited a while to see if it would start coming through again, but it didn’t. My adventures in the world of National Geographic were over. I though about mentioning it to my dad, but felt a bit awkward to ask - perhaps my dad’s friend had hit hard times and cancelled the subscription, maybe they’d fallen out, perhaps he’d even died. So I left it and carried on with my life exploration free and adventureless.

A long time after I mentioned it to my mum on the phone one day, I don’t why, maybe the mystery had become too much for me, I was never very good with mysteries. I was surprised by her answer and more than a little taken aback when she told me that my dad had transferred the subscription to my teenage nephew. I didn’t say much as she went on to tell me that they didn’t think I’d mind and supposed that I didn’t really bother to read them anyway. Supposed? No, only cover to cover, each and every word. No I didn’t read it, I lived it actually.

Apparently Alex, my nephew, was really interested in animals and countries and all sorts of stuff, and he did so like the pictures. Yeah, so did I.

I placed the receiver back its cradle wondering if Alex was, at that very moment, building an igloo, perhaps white-water rafting the Colorado River on my National Geographic. What could I say? It was my dad’s subscription to do with as he pleased. I wasn’t so much miffed as… well, it would have been nice to be asked; I wasn’t quite ready to hang up my crampons or take off my flippers.

I still read the National Geographic, I don’t subscribe but occasionally buy a copy when an article catches my eye and when I’ve got a spare fiver, and there’s always the doctor’s waiting room. Talking of doctors, Alex was officially made a doctor today, not a medical one, a doctor of countries and animals and stuff I think. I also like to think it was the sacrifice of my National Geographic that did it. After all, I didn’t bother to read it did I… Oh, well at least Alex got a doctorate out of it.