COLLECTING ‘Scraps of Paper’ over many decades has given Jim Boyd an archive which holds a wealth of interest.

Jim, a member of Glenrothes Probus Club, was the speaker at Cowdenbeath Rotary Club on Thursday night and told how he became a fanatical collector of paper items when very young.

It was something he did at home, while working as an accountant, and on holiday, which saw him collect some very funny items, serious stories and even propaganda material from the Second World War years.

“I was fortunate to come across some pamphlets that were dropped on London by the Germans, and also similar material dropped over Berlin by the RAF,” he said.

“How these items got over messages, with the use of what we now call ‘fake news,’ was quite something.”

Jim had several examples of these items with him, and the rotary club members were very interested in reading these.

One of the most interesting uses of paper he came across from abroad, was during a trip to Nagasaki, in Japan, where he found a monument remembering the children killed in the city when the Atomic bomb exploded there in 1945, which had key parts of it made of paper.

“It was such a special monument and really something which struck me greatly, in a city which has a played a pivotal part in history,” he said.

He also talked about some of the famous children’s comics he had come across, such as early issues of The Beano and The Eagle.