As much as I love paper maps, a love I first found at school, where I could break bounds in my head, if not in body. The printer has been my saviour, Ninethace has said much that is my feelings about the 'map case'.
The weakness of the paper map and the living room floor, was bought home to me by a challenge made in the bar of the Greyhound Inn, Llangunllo by a group of locals. They told me of a waterfall, the way known only to local children bought up in the village and a hangout favoured in hot weather. They bet me I could not find it, and even if I could, I would not be able to get to it.
If it was as significant as they described, I felt sure that it would be on an OS map. I did find it, though I never collected on the bet, because the pub closed it's doors on the death of its very old owner and did not re-open for 10 years.
That waterfall was more difficult to find, than I anticipated. It is on the join of 3 paper maps, and in the days before I had access to seamless mapping, I only cracked the riddle of it by joining scans together of the corners of 3 maps.
It was this experience that solved a question in my mind of a serious flaw in written walk guides. The pre-war guide books tended to be written by local people, many of the new publications are written by visitors to a locality and they do not have the ability to walk off the edge of an OS sheet.
The find of that waterfall was a great experience, I shared some insight with locals, watched Peregrine Falcons and learnt of a 10 year battle with egg snatchers, more successfully protected by the locals than that reputed bird lobby. I now enjoy returning there, as the Greyhound has re-opened.
Perhaps there is a bit more to map cases than meets the eye
or boom boom as the fox said to the puppeteer.
As a PS. Locals told me of another waterfall, now one of those abandoned playgrounds of children long grown, not far from Dyliffe, my experience made me check it out, map and local knowledge, a very rewarding combination.
Map and local knowledge, a very rewarding combination and perhaps the perfect map case.