THE 30th annual Darlington Book Fair is at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College today from 10am to 4pm, as Memories mentioned last week. Another of the curiosities for sale is a North of England School Furnishing Company catalogue from about 1930. The "school furney" had its works off John Street, and its head office and showroom in the superb building which Lloyds Bank has just moved out of on the corner of Skinnergate and Coniscliffe Road.

The "school furney", founded by the Pease family in 1875, furnished schools across the country. Indeed, its Darlington Slateboard – a special blackboard that swivelled so teacher could write even more on it but which never lost its blackness when the rubber was used – went around the world: schools in the Falkland Islands, Hong Kong, India, Burma and Syria were all kitted out with them.

The catalogue goes back to the classrooms of yesteryear, which were fitted with desks that were attached by a cast iron frame to a tip-up form. Run-of-the-mill desks cost £1 15s each, and came with a "patent anti finger trap device". Top of the range was Glendenning's Patent Adjustable Desk at £3 15s each. The desk top slid horizontally and was fixable at differing angles: 15 degrees for writing and 40 degrees for reading.

"The chair is made on hygienic principles, with adjustable Spine Pad, as approved by the Medical Profession," says the catalogue.

Of course, the company provided all those pieces of classroom paraphernalia that children won't understand the need for today: hat hooks, for example, and umbrella stands and inkwells. The pinnacle of the school furney's extensive range of inkwells was No 1358 in the catalogue, the "Darlington Combined Folding Inkwell Cover and Penholder", which came in brass for 18s a dozen.