Sternpost
But the one area where my completist tendencies have been allowed (almost) full rein is Classic Boat. Long before I joined the staff I’d amassed a collection comprising every issue. Or very nearly. I do have No 1 (v rare) but there are a handful of surprisingly randomly- spaced copies that have evaded me. If you want to know how much shelf space a full set takes up, it’s of the order, up to issue 284, of 2.5 yards (1.25 fathoms – though storing vertically is not advised, nor indeed underwater). I know I’m not alone, if only from the occasional offers we receive of, usually ‘almost complete’, sets from owners who are moving, or whose wives (in one recent case, widow) want to see the back of them. We CB addicts clearly have a milder form of the bug than the poor chap in Goldhanger, in the news recently when he was trapped under a collection of, allegedly, 7,000 yachting magazines as his ceiling collapsed under the weight of them stored in the loft. I do have a friend who owns every Practical Boat
Complete failure C
ompletisim is something about which I’ve always felt ambiguous – which is not a good start in this area. It amounts to admitting you’re obsessive, but not obsessive enough. The true completist insists on owning not only everything by their favoured writer, singer or whoever, but everything to do with them too. Books about them, documentaries, whatever. The trouble is, you can end up with an awful lot of dross that way, as well as spending an awful lot of money, and possibly incurring domestic disharmony. My wife once thought it a good idea to move all the Patrick O’Brians (complete set, including the posthumously- published incomplete last draft) into the spare bedroom. Bad idea. I’d never be able to gaze fondly upon them, and worse, a guest might start reading one and ask (or not ask) to borrow it.
The Arthur Ransomes ought to be easy enough: just 12 Swallows and Amazons books. But there are the various editions, the uncompleted last draft (again..), plus other works, biographies and so on... and on. And even I draw the line at the fishing books.
98 CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2012
“I took to describing it as a part-work, and so it is, in its way”
Peter Willis ponders the compulsion to collect
Owner, neatly arranged with the annual descending stripes on the spines creating a pleasing zigzag effect along the shelves. Why he keeps them I don’t know, apart from the fact that he used, occasionally, to write for them. Any five-year block or thereabouts would embrace all the topics covered on a rolling basis. Classic Boat, of course, is different. I took to describing it as a part-work soon after I joined the team here, and so, in its way, it is. Over the years it has covered pretty much every significant boat, or class, or designer, together with a good deal of material about boatyards – both the original builders and the modern restorers, and indeed modern builders. It’s an ever- growing work of reference. Not systematic, admittedly, though the random event-driven serendipity of its coverage is part of its charm. Nor, sadly, exhaustive. Where my completist streak is at its most exposed, and painful, is when, say, a major restoration or new-build, or perhaps simply a very interesting one, takes place, and we fail to cover it. I agonise. It’s all very well arguing that we only have so many pages, and so many writers; I still feel a deep sense of failure. In recent years, Yard News has helped fill some of the gaps, though even there I’m aware of narratives being started and not brought to completion. I shall continue to beat myself up over it, if nobody minds. On the other hand, one great advantage of the completist approach is that as long as you own something, you’re under no obligation to actually read it. I remember, when I used to read CB in bed, rather than at first-proof stage, all those splendidly worthy John Leather articles I hadn’t the heart to tackle. Eventually, of course, I found myself immensely grateful to them as a reference source. And that’s the joy of completism. It’s a way of laying hold of the world, or some part of it, and saying “I understand this”. Literally, perhaps, “I have grasped this”. Maybe the incomplete completist is not such an anomaly after all. One day I will track down issue 17.
GUY VENABLES
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