I hope this finds members well after the Easter break. I've been meaning to write since Tuesday but one thing and another — you know how it is with school holidays and grandchildren underfoot.

I want to tell you about something I came across while going through the Perkins donation, the boxes from the old fish co-op premises that came in last February. Most of it was what you'd expect — membership ledgers, photographs of the wharf in the 1960s, correspondence about the Merimbula road. Nothing we didn't already have versions of.

But right at the back of the second tea chest, underneath a folded piece of oilcloth, I found a smaller box — a proper wooden box with a brass clasp. It had been wrapped in waxed canvas, tied with cord. Whoever packed it knew what they were doing.

I've only had an hour or so with the contents — the children were due for dinner and I had to put it all back — but I wanted to let the Society know before the next meeting because I think it warrants proper attention.

What I can tell you so far: there are papers, perhaps thirty or forty pages, some handwritten, some printed, in at least two or three different hands. There is what appears to be a programme or broadsheet of some kind, folded, with decorative printing — I haven't unfolded it fully. There are three photographs, one of which shows the wharf here, I'm almost certain, though I can't place the vessels. There is a small object wrapped in blue cloth which I have not unwrapped.

The handwritten material I was able to read is — well, I'm not sure what to make of it. It reads partly as a diary, partly as something more formal, a report perhaps. There are references to Eden, to Twofold Bay, to the museum. But also to other places — a town in Lancashire, England, of all things. And to something called, if I'm reading the handwriting correctly, the Sub-Sea Circus.

I may be making more of this than it warrants. It wouldn't be the first time. But there is something about the weight of it — the care with which it was packed, the sense that whoever assembled this meant it to be found, eventually, by someone.

I'm hoping to get three or four clear days after next weekend once Susan's lot have gone back to Canberra. I'll post here with more when I have it.

Thank you for posting, Noel. I'm glad the Perkins material is finally being sorted — it has been sitting in the back room since February and frankly the smell alone has been a small concern.

A box within a box is always interesting. I would say don't get ahead of yourself, but I've been saying that since 1987 and it hasn't taken yet, so I'll simply say: do be careful with the photographs, the humidity in that room has not been kind to things.

The Lancashire reference is curious, I'll give you that. We've had the occasional English connection come through the collection — the Davidsons had English ties, and there were one or two merchant families in the 1890s — but nothing that ever amounted to much for our purposes.

The Sub-Sea Circus. I must say that phrase has been sitting with me since I read your post on Thursday. I can't place it and I've been through my memory fairly thoroughly. It isn't in the Killer Whale Museum catalogue that I recall, and it isn't anything Tom mentioned when he was doing his harbour research. Which either means it was minor and passed without much notice, or it was the sort of thing that people remembered privately but didn't write down.

In my experience those are sometimes the most interesting kind.

Do ring when Susan's family have gone. Bring the box, not just the contents — I'd like to see how it was packed.