The Blue Envelope

The faded blue envelope, glued face down in the centre of the page, has, written on it, two religious phrases - the first being, "Peace I give unto you is not as the world giveth. Give I unto you", and the second, "Let not your heart be troubled, Ye believe in God, Believe also in me"; some of the text is unclear and other parts, missing but that's what I'm sure it says.

Strangely enough, there two postmarks on what is the back of the envelope with each postmark carrying the legend and date, "MARGATE Nov 17 1889". If this was sent via the G.P.O., then the address, the stamp, and the cancelling postmark, must be on the other side but, if this is so, why are these two on the back?

Could it be that the envelope was never, actually, posted but was glued where it is just for the addition of the verses, and the postmarks? Was the postmark added, later, by, perhaps, my grandfather to provide a date - this doesn't sound too plausible, unfortunately, as it's difficult to imagine where he might have got the stamping tool from.

To add to the mystery, the "flaps", for some reason, were folded back in place and then sealed with sealing wax!

The postmark says, and around the outside of the envelope are many signatures of persons unknown to me. None of the names match those to be found on my grandfather's leaving memento (as I've called it) - see later

Arranged around the outside of the page and the envelope are what I, at first, thought were signatures, written directly onto the page in the book, which would have been strange enough, but, looking closer, they were all, originally, written on the same colour and same type, and possibly therefore, the same sheet of blue paper.

Each of the signatures were then carefully cut out and pasted, rather haphazardly, onto the page in the book, and around the envelope. The cutting, as I said before, has been carefully done - in the case of "W. Ongar", the cut has been made close to the top, bottom and sides of the name excpet where the letter "g" projects downward - there the cut goes all around this "tail". It would have been far easier to have just cut out rectangles but for aome reason that wasn't what was done.

Another possible suggestion is that the signatures were all written on a single sheet of paper, which was then posted to my grandfather, rather like a memento, and he, then, not wanting to lose these, cut them out and glued then in the book, together with the envelope. This still doesn't explain the two postmarks on the back, however!

Confusingly, at the top of the page is a small sketch, done by my grandfather, and identified as "View on Hampstead Heath 1889". What's that there for?

At the bottom, undated, is a small sketch of what looks like army tents so, it appears to have been some sort of camping event - but what and who was there? The "Boy Scouts" would not come into existence, for another seventeen years, until 1907.

The names, on the page and around the envelope, are as follows - they're given in alphabetical order and not the order on the page. Some of the names may be incorrect because of the difficulty in reading their signatures but I've done the best I can. "Illoley" is the most doubtful but even there I have found, on the Internet, several people with that exact surname - in Berkshire and on a ship's passenger list, so it does seem to be real!