Supsliskans in lockdown. Weeks 34-36 26 October - 15 November 2020+

Janet 1 November 2020

Dear All

Thanks to everyone for their updates and congratulations to Jane and David on their Golden Wedding Anniversary. Always good to have things to celebrate. Sadly, three of our long-standing but slightly older friends have died during these past two months. None directly from Covid-19 but the lock-down restrictions certainly contributed to their deaths in that they were just not able to be visited as often as they were before. It did seem a shame that the only time we could all get together was at their funerals. So it is my sincere hope that the government can find some way of keeping older folk Covid-safe without depriving them of contact with friends and family. With all three of these friends family had been allowed some visiting once it was clear they were not going to survive but, although that did help it certainly would have been better all round if there could have been better contact all along.

On a more cheery note, I can report that our grandchildren in Switzerland are all going to school pretty much as normal, though our daughter is still working from home, as are all her work colleagues. They were still celebrating Hallowe'en at home but not expecting any trick-or treaters. The one restriction in school matters is that the usual ski trip scheduled for February half-term - where they normally sleep several to a room in sleeping bags in a youth hostel - has been cancelled. But they are not really able to travel other than within Switzerland, so we will not be receiving any visits from them till Easter at the earliest and perhaps not till next July. We do have a weekly Zoom or Skype session though, which keeps our spirits up. Our youngest grandson, David, is at last reading aloud really well in German. He is reading to us from Seekers - die letzte Grosse Wildnis (which is actually a translation of a book in English) - and we are all enjoying it. He has been happily reading aloud in English for the past year but had been stumbling over the German, presumably because the books were just not that interesting, so it is a great relief all round that "the penny has now dropped" and he can do it.

Another cheering thing, for us at least, is that not all universities here are incubators of Corona Virus. Our son (Peter) and daughter-in-law (Alison) both work in admin at Royal Holloway in Surrey and they have currently only 13 cases of Covid-19 amongst their 11,500 students - ie only the same incidence as in their local community. They have been working hard to ensure social distancing an keeping everyone safe and they have a rapid-testing system on site, so that cases can be swiftly identified and isolated. They achieve social distancing by only having half a cohort in a lecture theatre whilst the other half watch on-line, then they swap for the next lecture of that module. All the admin staff are working from home where possible and that both helps keep them safe and frees up their office space for use by students as study areas, to save them going off campus during the day if they are among those not resident on campus. Fingers crossed it continues to go well. The staff were originally expecting to return to their desks after Christmas but it now looks as if they will be working from home for the rest of this academic year. They can access their desktop computers remotely and hold most of their meetings on-line so the work still gets done.

For ourselves, we have been enjoying on-line lectures, singalongs and quizzes with the local U3A and on-line lectures, with live Q&A via email, with the Manchester Lit & Phil. We haven't done our planned trips in our camper van though and now it seems we have left it too late, with lock-down back before we managed to go anywhere.

Attached is a link to an on-line lecture about Joyce Grenfell's life and work which some of you may find interesting.

All the best and keep safe. Janet.

PS Obviously, it's too late now for the live Q&A but the talk is still available.

Jane 1 November 2020

Dear All, 

Good to hear from you, Janet. I have been meaning to email and apologise for putting you off emailing previously for fear of my reaction to tales of meeting family. Certainly the short visit from Douglas and Co helped us, but a picture of a build-your-own gingerbread house in the Lakeland catalogue which fell out of one of our newspapers yesterday made me feel sad. For the last 12 years we have given one from the posh bakery here to the grandchildren when we have visited before Christmas, but that's not going to be possible this year. We thought last year that Tom at 16 would have grown out of such things, but he was as keen as Alice to begin the construction. When Alice first helped at the age of 2, Tom was able to read the instructions, the first of which after the unpacking said to eat one of the packets of sweets. I got him to promise not to tell Alice!

We are still pottering on. David has written an article on a Provost of the town for the Preservation Trust newsletter to be published next month, and I have catalogued some Valuation Rolls from the Research Room, with the promise of more work when the Curator has sorted out what needs to be done. As the Museum is just round the corner, it is easy for us to bring the items home and do the work here. And it gives David a chance to use the material in his research. But I worry about security. We have all the necessary alarms in the ground floor because it was rented to students before we bought it. But apparently we need to fit similar in our 1st floor. The first we knew of this was when a leaflet from a commercial firm dropped through the letter box offering to install smoke and heat alarms, and like many others we thought this was official notification as the Scottish government logo was on the leaflet. It turns out that was a mistake on the part of someone in the administration. As a result of the furore we have an extra year for the installation.

But after the chaos of the flu jab booking system (75,000 letters sent out by Fife NHS all on the one day and 12 people appointed to answer the telephones) I had mine 10 days ago in the Scout Hall just 2 minutes' walk away. David has now emailed his request but we wonder where he will have to go as the Scout Hall has been closed when we have walked past more recently. Initially I went on the website and had a reply telling me what information was required. I do feel a lot of time would have been saved if there had been a booking form on the website.

We were amused when Our Nicola waited to hear about Boris' 3 tiers before announcing her version - 5. Not 1-5 but 0-4. Weird! Fife goes into Tier 2 tomorrow, but we are so confused that we are ignoring Tiers and carrying on as before - assessing our own risk, keeping out of the way of others, avoiding public transport, and shopping early. Cases within the University are now up to 72, but there is no detail as to whether they are all in halls of residence or how ill those infected are. I do feel that blanket numbers of cases, hospitalisation and of deaths are not very helpful without some indication of age and initial state of health. Now we await ON's reaction to Boris' lockdown. At least the local Council backed down and restored most of the parking in the centre of town after an outcry from shops, businesses and the elderly. But we still have ugly white water-filled barriers coning off one side of two one-way streets, supposedly for pedestrians, which means that there is no longer room to step off the pavement on the other side (the main shop side) to get past others on foot as we have always done.

Unable to work on the Civil War with me as I have not been able to visit him near Nottingham, my co-author has been making things for his neighbours - and posted a magnificent bird table to me. David says it looks like a Swiss chalet. With Peter's printed instructions to hand I was able to fix the two sections of the pole together and set it in concrete which was an achievement I felt - and amused the girl in the DIY next door where I bought the bag of sand and cement. The table has pegs round the sides to stop the pigeons stealing all the food. The blackbird was confused at first but now flies in and out several times a day for a meal of porridge oats, and even a woodpecker has investigated. Pigeons now have to rely on the tits flicking seed on to the ground from the feeder hooked on the side.

I am composing this on Hotmail accessed from Microsoft Edge as I am told that Outlook is out of date and not being supported after August next year. If only computers could stay the same instead of adding bits I am never likely to use. Having said that I have managed two Archaeology Society meetings on Zoom and listened to a University lecture on Teams. There may be hope yet . . . But I could do without the pink and blue bits when I type the wrong word and don't use the punctuation which the gnomes inside the computer think I should. 

I was going out into the garden to sweep up leaves but it is raining again, so a good excuse for a cup of tea and to return to the fiendish jigsaw which a Welsh friend sent me. It only has 250 pieces but every one is different, and the picture is of a library seven shelves high with every book bound in shades of green, dark red and brown. Just right for the dark days of winter!

Hope you are all keeping well, and not as grumpy as me. David had an aunt who complained all the time and we always said that was what kept her going. She lived to be 99.

Love to all, Jane

Ian 8 November 2020

Hello everyone

Yes, back into lockdown #2 and a tentative foray into the centre of Exeter on Friday to look for some glue (hardly essential but required to fix some guttering) revealed a deserted place with very few shops open. 

Like Jane and David we still potter with things historical as and when we can. Like Jane we curse the changes in our computers and are alarmed that Outlook is being phased out. I have so far managed to avoid Windows 10 and, like Jane, curse the hidden coding that the nerds insist on inserting behind the scenes so that we cannot do what we want - the trouble it took me to get the images below lined up ...  Still Zoom is remarkable and we have had some interesting meetings, both with family and other local bibliofools. The Devon and Exeter Institution have started an interesting lecture series, beginning with a talk by one of the only knowledgeable librarians in Devon, recently grabbed from the V&A - have a look at the talk on Beatrix Potter and the Westcountry.

  

We had our last get-together with the grandchildren on the 4th November, an early bonfire with sparklers and hot dogs in our garden. Dry weather and a respite in the wind meant that it went up vertically with no smoke and was quite impressive with lots of thick branches consumed. The grandchildren were most impressed. We decided that if they cuddled our knees and we looked the other way, we could avoid close contact. 

That morning we had returned from several days away, the first stay away from home since a brief trip to Land's End in August. I hope you will forgive the following account, which I am preparing for the Westcountry Studies bibliographical newsletter. 

Halloween saw us in a thatched cottage deep in the west Devon countryside on the fringes of Dartmoor. Knowing that the author of A book of werewolves was buried just yards away, and that Lewtrenchard Manor was haunted by the White Lady, we made sure that our doors and windows were bolted and barred and listened to the wind howling through the trees and the rain beating on the windows with just a hint of trepidation. We had been welcomed with a massive cream tea which was to last us for several days, and very welcome it was after the first of five days of intensive work on the Sabine Baring-Gould library. The American descendants of SBG, who own the estate, were due to visit – partly to avoid the US election and the prospect of a victory of "the Orange One" as they call him – but Covid had put paid to that, so we had the use of their vacant cottage.

The whole library operation is a complex and never-ending one and the following is based on something I put together for a local newsletter. More than 2,000 books built up by six generations of the Baring-Gould family between the late 18^th century and 1931, when they left for America, are housed there, just part of a collection that is split haphazardly between Lewtrenchard, the University of Exeter and the Devon Record Office. A recent development was the donation from an SBG fanatic, David Shacklock, in 2018 of more than 1,000 books and bound volumes of periodicals by or relating to SBG. 

To assist in locating and reshelving the books we had decided to place spine labels on most items and sort them into categories subdivided alphabetically by author or title. The categories in the Shacklock collection reflect the divisions allocated by David Shacklock and, with an eye to eventual rationalisation of the three present locations of the Baring-Gould family library at Lew, the University and the Devon Heritage Centre, the categories in that collection are based on the ownership and authorship of the books. However the location of the books on the shelves is complicated by the fixed heights of the shelves, many of which are too small to take any but the smallest formats – books today are larger than in SBG's time and the Shacklock collection contained many recent items. This means that there are two or even three parallel sequences for most categories. Work is still in progress labelling and relocating the books but we haven't quite reached our aim of having the Shacklock collection on the open shelves in the library, the books owned by SBG's children and grandchildren in the gallery and the remainder of the Baring-Gould family library behind glass in the library.

The fact that the weather was poor meant that we were not enticed into the beautiful grounds and there was much of interest in the collections. Baring-Gould was a man with a magpie mind. Apart from the folk songs, which he considered his most important achievement, he collected works on archaeology, history, the topography of the Westcountry, France, Germany, Iceland and other parts of the world, folklore, superstitions, country life and customs, as well as church history, many of them in German or French. He was also a prolific writer, with more than 1,000 books and articles to his credit on all the subjects mentioned above, mostly written standing at his writing desk which can be seen at Lewtrenchard. He was the author of a large number of novels but he wrote them with great reluctance. In his diary he writes on 24 August 1886 "I write novels with anger and heat because they take me off my proper course of study, history, especially ecclesiastical, and mythology, which is my favourite study. I write only because I cannot build and restore this house. I can not live on the estate, without supplementing my income from my pen."  He might have added that his family of fifteen children cannot have made his financial situation any easier.

Good or bad, his novels provide an interesting record of the development of the design of publishers' casings. Here an example of Grettir the outlaw, a story of Iceland, a novel that had its genesis before his visit to Iceland in 1862. Passages from the sagas appear in Iceland: its scenes and sagas, published in 1863. It was not until 1890 that the novel finally appeared, in order to fill a hole in SBG's finances.

But perhaps the most unusual item is one collected by an ancestor of SBG. It is an ambitious serial publication for women, published in Paris. The Bibliothèque universelle des dames appeared in 156 volumes between 1785 and 1797. The privilege for this mammoth undertaking was granted 6 July 1784 to Jacques Perrin. The frequency announced was fortnightly on the 1st and 15th of each month but, while this was maintained from 1786 to 1790, it became very irregular after the Revolution. The length of each volume varies from about 120 pages to more than 400, in a tiny octodecimo format, only 13 x 8 cm in size. Volumes could be delivered in wrappers or bound in a variety of ways. The annual subscription for 24 volumes bound was 72 livres, or 54 livres in wrappers, plus postage. 

The series of volumes was in eleven classes, ranging from  novels to  mathematics and home medicine, and was conceived as a collection of works to provide a general education, easily accessible, for women of "a certain class". From 1787 interest seems to have been focussed on the practical, technical and scientific aspects of the collection. Few complete collections are known, only the British Library seems to have a full set in Britain, so it is good to have discovered an almost complete set in original bindings in the Baring-Gould family library in Devon. A full list of the titles of the 143 volumes they hold can be found in the catalogue of the collection. The subscription to this set seems to have ceased early in 1793, which accounts for most of the gaps.

So, we were able to spend a few days in agreeable bibliographical surroundings, just before Lewtrenchard Manor Hotel and the cottage were due to close once more for Lockdown #2, but at least the worst fears of the owners about the "Orange One" were not realised.   

Thanks for reading to the end of this little bit of self-indulgence and stay safe over the coming weeks. The continuing restrictions are becoming rather tedious. 

Ian (and Jill)

Anne 9 November 2020

Hello everyone and hope you are all managing to cope with this 2nd lockdown. We have been through it all before but this is different, here anyway, as not being quite so extreme but also being somehow more difficult because of the reaction of certain groups who don't want to cooperate.

However I won't go into any further details. This is just to thank Ian for the link to the talk about Beatrix Potter. I was brought up on Beatrix Potter's books, have visited her farm at Sawrey and knew about her connections with the rural community in Westmorland (as it was then)  and the National Trust. I didn't know about her links with the West Country - very interesting and a fascinating talk.

Set in Stymouth (Sidmouth). Piggery Porcombe echoes Budleigh Salterton

I can imagine Val was also interested. I remember how she acquired for each of her children a complete set of the Beatrix Potter books, and no doubt her grandchildren are now being reared on them!

So, take care everyone and let's hope the number of cases begins to go down soon.I have my doubts about Christmas and New Year when people want to celebrate and get together but we can only hope for the best.

Love, Anne

Sylvia 9 November 2020

Hi Everyone,

Ian's email and Anne's reply have made me feel nostalgic, not only for the Beatrix Potter stories, of which I have 5 from my own childhood, but also for the Alison Uttley stories.  Does anyone remember Little Grey Rabbit?  There are many other characters, including Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog and Sam Pig.  I've  just looked Alison Uttley up and have discovered that she was born and grew up in Cromford, Derbyshire, so maybe I was more aware of her than I might have been if she hadn't been a Derbyshire lass. She was writing from the late 1920s until her death in 1976.  Although the 5 Beatrix Potter and 5 Alison Uttley books I own all date from my childhood, unfortunately I don't possess a first edition of any of them, although there are no publishing dates for the Beatrix Potter ones - just the copyright date.  I'm not sure how a first edition would be identified.

Lockdown#2 is rumbling on.  I did manage to squeeze in a visit to Helen and family a week ago, but it means a friend and I can't have our regular get-together on a Friday evening and I might spend my birthday this month at home, although Helen is suggesting we form a temporary support bubble for November, which, if you don't tell anyone, could transfer to Chris and family for Christmas, when they've invited me to Hitchin.  I suppose there's just a chance that Boris will allow us out to play then anyway. 

One light at the end of this very long tunnel is that Donald is on his way out.  Only less than 2 months to go.  I heard a reporter on Radio 4 last week comment that "Unfortunately Trump doesn't have an adult relationship with the truth.", which I thought was a lovely way of not saying that he's a psychopath.

Stay well, everyone and keep emailing. Love, Sylvia

Janet 9 November 2020

Dear All

I, too, was a devotee of Beatrix Potter and Alison Uttley stories as a child, so thank you, Ian, Anne and Sylvia for your memories of them. As it happens, Alison Uttley (nee Taylor) was a physics graduate of Manchester University, where I read Chemistry (though obviously much later), and was a resident of Ashburne House, later called Ashburne Hall, where I too spent my Manchester years. Here is a link showing Ashburne's blue plaque in her memory. https://openplaques.org/plaques/8675

Ashburne has benefited from a bequest by her of half the royalties from the sale of her books, so a revival of interest in her work over the past few years has been welcomed by the Ashburne Association, of which I am still a member. I attended an Alison Uttley centenary at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (on Deansgate in Manchester city centre) where Denis Judd, her biographer, showed a film giving interesting details of her life. He is the president of the Alison Uttley Society: https://alisonuttley.co.uk/ where you might be able to find out more re publishing dates, first editions and so on.

Alison also wrote a few novels which some may find interesting and there is a range of cookery books giving some useful country recipes - all of which I have ended up buying, of course, as one does at such events.

Best wishes, Janet.

Lesley 9 November 2020

Certainly, NZ sounds to have been well led through Covid so far.  'Our Nicola' has placed the Highlands in Zone 1 (next to the bottom) so local businesses have a degree of freedom that those in higher zones can only envy.

We were able to go to Islay for 8 days last week (caught the fury of Storm Aiden which even islanders of decades considered "nothing previously this bad") and our 7-year-old grand-daughter came for a sleepover on our second night home, so life has no complaints of substance.  Our daughter feels Raigmore is well prepared for the next peak of patients and their 'Battle preparations' for phase 1 worked smoothly for a moderate caseload.  She is so relieved they all moved from London over 2 years ago....as are we.  So, we are good, thank you.  Everyone seems to be staying safe, keeping well and enjoying sharing our moments of frustration and 'insanity'!!

Best wishes,

Lesley

Margaret 9  November 2020

I have really enjoyed this conversation about Beatrix Potter and Alison Uttley, as both bring back memories for me.

As a child I loved the Beatrix books and have retained an interest in her. There is (or was) a lovely shop in Gloucester near the cathedral selling her books and exhibiting lovely displays about her. I think that once featured her connection with the West Country.

A few .years ago I was chatting to a librarian friend and told her that I thought I might have a first edition Beatrix Potter. She and her husband have an online second hand book business and I thought she might be able to assist me. Next day she appeared on the doorstep with two specialist books on identifying first editions. One of them revealed that my copy of Peter Rabbit was indeed a first edition and Lorna told me to take it to a chap in Blackwell’s Rare Books Department but ring him first. This I duly did and a few days later walked into Blackwell’s clutching my little Peter Rabbit. I was interested to see the Rare Books department with its sofa and book cases and old-fashioned atmosphere. The expert disappeared with my book reappearing few minutes later to inform me that it was indeed a first edition and worth  £500. Incidentally, the price on the book was 1 shilling!

As I was helping to raise funds for a project at our church I accepted and walked out of the shop with a cheque to that value! I have to admit that there are times when I wish I still had the book.

As for Alison Uttley I think I have one of her books but it was in one of the book  cases in the garden room where I am now living. Before I came home last June I got a friend to empty the case and put all the books in boxes ready for clearing this room to make room for the bed which does take up a large space. When we lived near Matlock in Derbyshire I was very familiar with her house on the hill above Cromford - you could see it from the A6.

She was quite a revered local character.

Coming back to the present, I can report progress with mobility. I now go upstairs for lunch and supper so I can sit at the table rather than eat with a tray on my knee. Also it’s an opportunity to find things I need for myself rather than trying to explain to my carer where they are.

Well, I wonder what the next happening will be that triggers off another Supsliskan correspondence.

So, here’ s to the next time.

Love to all,

Margaret 

Janet 9 November 2020

Dear Margaret

That is marvellous news - that you are back on your feet and are able to go upstairs again. What a wonderful feeling of renewed independence that must give you. And not a moment too soon, I'm sure. Now you will be able to sort out your affairs in time for Christmas and the hoped-for end of some of the current restrictions.

Love, Janet.

Sue 10 November 2020

Hi All

Many thanks for sharing your news, and very best wishes with the latest restrictions.   Yes, indeed, well done Margaret!   I guess the restrictions will be easier to deal with in that all the click and collect etc services will all be there already.

I don't think my mother (a teacher) can have all together approved of Beatrix Potter - no idea why - as I don't recall Peter Rabbit from my childhood, though I can recall Little Grey Rabbit.    I don't think many books for children were published during WW 2 (I was born in '42) and oddly I wasn't taken to the Stockton-on-Tees library, which presumably had a children's section by then.   Though I did get comics which were delivered with the Sunday papers, so that there would be peace and quiet for my parents to read the papers.   And I remember Rupert Bear from - was it - Shock! Horror! - the Daily Express?  My books as a very small child were limited and hand-me-downs.   I often wonder if it was easier to learn to read with the repetition that was inevitable from this small collection, compared with the current generation of nippers with their vast collections of really interesting stories.   Attached is a not very good shot of the Gloucester Beatrix Potter shop taken in Sept 2009 - closed, as it was a Sunday - I hope it is still around.

What a relief to have the US Election over... er, nearly over. Interesting, Sylvia,  the way commentators avoid saying Trump tells lies; I liked this comment on the BBC website "German politicians and voters have been shocked by his abrasive style, his unconventional approach to facts...." Thank heavens our recent General Election in NZ will have zero effect on the rest of the world!   But I'm glad we have the same team in charge for a bit longer.

And there sounds to be optimism over the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine - let's hope that proves well founded.

Please continue to take good care of yourselves - Love, Sue

Angela 11 November 2020

Hello Everyone

It is very good to hear from people again. Thank you Ian for getting the ball rolling and for introducing the Beatrix Potter theme. The lecture was very interesting. What a fascinating series of Potter recollections it stimulated which then led on to Alison Uttley. I loved their books and still have copies we got for Heather which Freya is now reading. My Beatrix Potter memories are of being lent the entire collection of her books by an elderly neighbour when I was recovering from measles followed by flu . The books were wonderful, but even better was the large, handmade bookcase they arrived in, complete with doors, which had all the characters beautifully painted all over it. I am sure Sue's observation about the effect of WWII on children's books is right. I still have one of my old books which I see was printed in France in 1948 called 'Gaston and Josephine'. It is about the adventures of two little French piglets going to visit family in America! The pictures show them as very 'piglet-like' - apart from their clothes! but pigs obviously still have appeal now as proved by 'Peppa pig'! I also really loved Rupert Bear, especially the 'Annuals'!

I spoke to Margaret recently and it is great news to hear that she is making such excellent progress. Getting to see family is obviously generally problematic for a lot of people. We last saw ours in September on our last trip to Hertfordshire. We missed seeing them later in the month as Leo had a 'Covid scare' which very fortunately turned out to be just a chest infection which was sorted out with antibiotics! We were quite anxious at the time, but we now know how to do a home test which in itself was quite challenging - but perhaps that was just because we were a bit panicky at the time!. One big tip is to remember to remove the air from the final bag to make sure it fits inside the self construct box! An outside meeting with family at half term was planned, as they were in Tier 2, and Herts was Tier 1, but the weather washed that out, then came lockdown 2. Still. as Janet is finding, Zoom and FaceTime are great for keeping in touch until times get better.

Although we did so much extra work in the garden during Lockdown 1, it doesn't seem to show now that autumn is here. I am now doing lots of pruning of shrubs which is probably some sort of 'coping' behaviour but is still very satisfying! We are lucky to have Cley beach so near for walks and I am now attempting to paint mandalas on some of the flat beach stones I have picked up using acrylics. It is not as easy as it looks but interesting to experiment. I am being careful to collect in a 'sustainable' way, recycling stones I had already collected. I remember the huge fuss caused when Ian McEwan 'borrowed' a few pebbles from Chesil Beach as a memento of his book. He was threatened with a large fine and eventually returned them all to the beach! Online 'gentle' fitness and Zoom ballet keep the joints moving after all the gardening with various family history projects and photo sorting on the go.

The reluctance of the 'Orange One' to admit defeat and show any co-operation in the transition period is horribly fascinating. The good news about a vaccine though is a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it may take some time to organise.

Keep safe and well. Love, Angela

Jane 13 November 2020

Dear All,

I have much enjoyed the reminiscences of childhood reading - and well done, Margaret, discovering the Beatrix Potter 1st edition, selling it for a good price and donating the money to charity. I still have a collection of Potter books, my first being Jemima Puddleduck which is now very battered. I was tempted at a Book Fair some years ago by The Fairy Caravan until I saw the price, £100, because it was supposedly a 1st edition. But it was first published in America and this was the UK edition. At the moment the price of the complete Flower Fairies in Bouquiniste, our local 2nd hand bookshop, is fortunately enabling me to resist buying it. The owner of the shop has been persuaded by his wife to sort out his huge pamphlet collection and we have relieved him of well over 100 local, including several rare, ones, so have contributed to his lockdown finances quite well.

I also remember Alison Uttley. But did none of you read Winnie the Pooh? We could hardly believe a colleague in Durham UL when he said he had never read it and presumably neither had his daughters. My other favourites were the Animal Shelf books by Ivy L. Wallace who also wrote about Pookie the Rabbit with Wings. (I had to resist the temptation to buy one of those from Bouquiniste!) One of the animals was a monkey called Woeful who had an adventure involving 'waspberries'. We still refer to raspberries by that name, and when being bossy I am often called Gumpa after the bear who organised the other animals. 

Do you remember the discussion about Enid Blyton with staff when we visited Wakefield County Library. Her books were not stocked in the libraries and I think most of us disagreed with the decision, saying that the books got children reading, much as J.K. Rowling does now. And what was wrong reading about adventures which you knew could never happen to you? I am a great believer in escapist literature!

First edition!

And escape is what we did for a night this week - to the ground floor flat while new windows were installed at the front of the 1st floor. They are double glazed and have certainly cut out much of the traffic noise so a good investment. We now need the whole room painted, new carpet and new curtains, quite a thought to choose and arrange without transport (and Fife is now in Tier 3 so public transport is to be avoided) so we have the local Interior Designer coming on Tuesday to give us a quote. We hope she is not horrified by all the books or suggest we arrange them by colour. The joiner is coming back sometime to remove half a door from the meter cupboard in 'the study' downstairs so that I can have three more shelves fitted above. All in all we are pleased that our French river cruise was cancelled and the refund can be spent on more permanent items! And we are 'buying local' as much as we can.

Time to cook another meal! Love, Jane

Sylvia 14 November 2020

Oh yes, Winnie The Pooh was a favourite with me and also with Chris, my son, who can quote huge tracts from the books.  He's now introduced them to his two older boys and Theo, who is 9, loves them too.  I'm trying to think of works contemporary to my childhood, as everything I remember seems to have been a classic from an earlier time.  I read Black Beauty, Bambi, Little Women, What Katy Did, Alice in Wonderland, plus their sequels, and when I visited my godmother, Baba the Elephant.  Any suggestions, folks, for children's books published in the 40s and 50s?  I know there will be some, and when I see the titles I will realise I did know them, but I can't see any on my bookshelves here.

First edition

Margaret, I'm delighted to hear of your progress, which must be a joy to you.

Keep the thoughts coming. Love, Sylvia

Margaret 14 November 2020

This has developed into an interesting trip down memory lane! Yes, Sylvia, Winnie the Pooh was a firm favourite with me, too. Also, the Arthur Ransome books. My mother showed a keen interest in my reading habits and took to reading the latter herself. I read a lot of Enid Blyton and have never quite understood the current opposition to them. I loved Bambi. In my early teens I got hooked on the Chalet School girls books. Oh and Little Women.

Keep this going! Love from Margaret 

Sylvia 14 November 2020

I’d forgotten about the Arthur Ransome series (Swallows and Amazons, etc.), which I loved - much better than the similar Enid Blyton adventure books in my opinion, but my kids considered them too old fashioned, despite them having been written not so much earlier.  I think the objection to Enid Blyton was to do with the Noddy books because of the name Golliwog and who were portrayed as the baddies.

Still no other suggestions for books written in the late 40s and 50s, although to my amazement, I've just discovered that Charlotte's Web was published in 1952.  I never read it as a child, but my two loved it.  Tom's Midnight Garden was also published in the late 50s and again, I only came across it through my children.  I know that by the mid-50s I was using the adult library, e.g. Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, so maybe that's why they passed me by.

Sylvia

Angela 14 November 2020

Hello Everyone

What fun trying to remember our favourite books from childhood! I do have happy memories of all the books you listed Sylvia and had forgotten Pooki! Pooh Bear was a real favourite as well as the poems by A.A. Milne published in 'Now we are Six' and other collections.

Margaret reminded me of the 'Chalet Girls' which I remember discovering in the Junior Library in Llandudno and really loving. I was introduced to Arthur Ransome by my godmother who sent the whole series all the way from Ireland, along with lots of Irish Folk Tales too!. Enid Blyton's ' Castle of Adventure', 'River of Adventure' etc were all very gripping as well as the Famous Five and Secret Seven series.

Other books which are beginning to surface in my memory , after all this time are 'Ballet Shoes' (Noel Streatfield), 'Milly Molly Mandy' (Joyce Lankester Brisley), 'Just William Books' (Richmal Crompton), which Heather also enjoyed, 'Green Sailors' series (Gilbert Hackforth-Jones) and the 'Lone Pine' series by Malcolm Saville. Just as Sylvia did, I also eventually left the Junior Library and moved on to Agatha Christie!

As Sylvia and Margaret recollected, we also read classics like 'Black Beauty', 'Tom and the Water Babies' and 'Treasure Island' (Parts of which I found quite scary then!) and 'Dr Doolittle' (Hugh Lofting) with the wonderful 'Push-me-pull-you' animal. I have just discovered I still have a copy of Heidi which I see from the inscription was given to me in 1954 by my ballet teacher!

It is interesting to see that some of these books e.g. Milly Molly Mandy were published from the 1920's up to the 60's and of course the William books are still popular and have had TV series. Pooh Bear lives on still with translations into so many languages and cartoon versions.  Others, as Sylvia mentioned, have now become somewhat politically incorrect. I remember when I started working in School Libraries, two reviews of the development of children's books had just come out, highlighting this. One was called ' Make the Cocoa Janet' and the other 'You are a Brick Angela'! I also remember doing a survey of fiction front covers with the Sociology teacher and finding very few with girls or any sort of cultural diversity. Things have thankfully changed a lot now!

Looking forward to seeing more 'book memories'! Keep well, Angela

Anne 14 November 2020

Hello to all,

Yes, Ange, I agree with all you wrote, I read exactly the same books, there probably wasn't all that much choice in those days. Jane, I loved the Shelf Animals; my oldest and best-loved teddy bear is named after one of them - Little Mut - because he looks very like the one in the book though brown and not white!

I would spend every Saturday morning in the Halifax Children's Library until we left there in summer 1955. We were allowed to borrow 3 books at a time and I remember once returning on the Saturday afternoon as I had read 1 or 2 of the 3 books I had borrowed in the morning. The librarian hadn't got round to filing the cards and I was told off for reading too quickly!

Tales of boarding schools fascinated me -midnight feasts and French Mamselles - and of course pony books - there were 2 sisters, Pullein-Thompson - who wrote some of those. Then there was a whole series of career books for girls. These would surely now be frowned upon by today's feminists. They did present various careers, including librarianship,  but somehow there was always a "happy ending", i.e. the girl - nurse, teacher, vet, librarian - would end up finding a suitable husband!

We always listened to Children's Hour on the radio at 5 pm whilst eating tea and they serialised a lot of books - I remember the Jennings books, a boy also at boarding school.

The first adult books I read were by Nevil Shute and a series about a family in Canada, the Jarlna (???) books and Hugh Walpole's Herries Chronicles (the Lake District connection).

I must stop as I see I'm getting carried away, but so interesting to see we all read the same books. I recently joined our village library for some light reading during lockdown. Lots of children's books and otherwise Thrillers and Krimis and one section labelled Women's Literature! (Haven't investigated that yet)

Keep reading,

Anne

Val 15 November 2020

Hello everyone!

 

Fascinating glimpses into our childhood reading habits!!  Generally remarkably similar! Yes, Anne, I did love Beatrix Potter, but also Little Grey Rabbit, Rupert Bear & the Flower Fairies. I didn’t like Winnie the Pooh, but loved “When we were very young” & “Now we are six”!! Did anyone else have Toby Twirl books?  And my favourite, Fudge the Elf annuals?   I have 5 Fudge annuals & read them to death. Disney annuals too.

 

What Katy Did & the rest of that series, William, Bunter & Biggles.  I still have all of them! I still have loads of Enid Blyton & used to save up to buy them.  The Adventure series (the best in my opinion!) were 8/6d.  Famous Five 7/6d. All the other series eg Five Find Outers & Dog were brilliant too. The only problem when reading the odd chapter at bedtime is coming across an utterly inappropriate, never used today word!! Does one just read it & move swiftly on or leave it out which only risks granddaughter drawing attention to the fact I’ve left it out which in turn draws more attention!!   It’s lovely to be able to read one’s own copies, but ... !!

 

I also remember the Wakefield trip & our bewilderment that children should only be expected to read about what was within their own, possibly traumatic,  experience, not flights of fancy of adventure which would fire their imagination.  No one ever actually believed  we’d have our own Kirrin Island, but we could dream!!

 

I loved The Chalet School & The Abbey School (Elsie J Oxenham). I read The Scarlet Pimpernel series quite early too & reread a few during lockdown. Still a good read.  Little Women, Heidi etc.  I too enjoyed the career series & the library had them all.

 

The big frustration with Manchester Public Libraries was that you weren’t allowed to return & exchange books the same day!!

 

It’s been interesting over the years to see which books fired my three’s imagination & which left them cold.  One hated Rupert, one loved The Chalet School.  All loved Enid Blyton! Same is happening with granddaughters, but there are so many brilliant new children’s books out there jostling for time!  Julia Donaldson in particular, but I’m not a fan of David Walliams’s books! Harry Potter is brilliant at any age.

 

Anyway, enough of my childhood reading habits.  I think the main point to emerge is that we are all readers & book collectors! It’s good you are all keeping well & navigating all this weirdness with humour. I’m doing all the Christmas preparations as normal with fingers & toes crossed!!

 

Look forward to the next burst of messages! Love, Vally