An Introduction – Archivist’s Note

This site exists because of a childhood memory of my great uncle Bertie; how he would write to me with such curious letters of his adventures. Never knowing when the next letter would arrive, I would often sit on the bottom step of the stairs on a Saturday morning, staring at the letter box and waiting for the postman to arrive.

Though thrilling at the time, I grew older and came to believe he was simply an eccentric old man—telling whimsical stories to amuse a young and impressionable mind.

Then came the shelf.

A bookcase bowed slightly under the weight of books that had not been opened in years.

It was there, while reorganising what little remained of my great uncle’s effects, that I noticed several books sitting deeper than the rest. Some had been shelved back-to-front. Others contained folded pages that clearly did not belong to them.

They were not in any particular order. Some were unlabeled. None were complete—several torn, others missing pages entirely.

What I am finding, slowly, are portions of my great uncle Bertram Thomason Stone’s journals: field notes, sketches, photos, lists, and reflections written during his explorations as a naturalist. Pages are rarely dated, and several refer to places I have been unable to identify with any certainty.

This blog is an attempt to make sense of what remains—and perhaps, along the way, to reignite the excitement I once felt reading his letters.
Maybe it was all true after all.

My first task has been to assemble the pages relating to what appears to be the earliest complete expedition I have so far recovered. Even this “complete” account is itself a collection of fragments—loose sheets pressed into unrelated books, notes written in different hands of ink, passages that end without warning.

Over time, I will begin releasing these entries here. Some will appear in parts; others may stand alone. Each will be presented as faithfully as possible, with minimal intervention on my part.

It will be here that I share the adventures of Uncle Bertie.

I am no longer waiting at the bottom of the stairs—but I am listening again; if nothing else, the world he described was far stranger than I could imagine.