NOTES..from a TORROX bookworm!

 

Us quiet ‘uns can do it anywhere. Rather like the old Martini advert “Anytime, Anywhere, Any place”, it can be done morning, noon or night, indoors or out, winter or summer, alone or in company! You can either take it with you or buy it when you arrive! What is this woman on about? Reading – now what did you think it was?

 

I have been watching that wonderful short series on TV called ‘Can’t Read, Can’t Write’ – what a fantastic teacher Phillip Beadle is and I ask why can’t all teachers teach like that? Yes, I know the answer is time and money. Shame. Anyway, I can’t image life without reading; it is like breathing to me. Take books out of my life and I would die – well not literally die, but my brain would shrivel and I would become ‘a vegetable’.

 

Can you remember when and how you learnt to read? Who taught you? My answer to these quest ions is No. I just can’t recall anytime when I couldn’t and didn’t read.

 

I was born in the 1940s, an only child who was not encouraged to make friends. So dolls, jigsaws and books became my ‘friends’. Early childhood memories are few and far between but Beatrix Potter’s little square books with their white covers still make me smile. ‘Little Women’ and ‘Jo’s Boys’ soon followed. I can remember joining the local library as soon as I could and many a Saturday morning was spent amongst the shelves I found hard to reach! A right mixture of authors found their way into my hands, ranging from the adventures of Biggles, anything written by Ed McBain, to the writings of Mrs. Gaskill (‘North and South’ still being a favourite) and the Russian Classic ‘Quietly Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov.

 

Immediately after my 15^th birthday in 1959 I started work as a Junior in the offices of Jackson and Goslin, a factory making cups, saucers, teapots etc (known as a Pot Bank). I have fond memories of this time. I worked with Mrs. Leech and Mrs. Wright, who every morning took it in turns to bring in cold bacon sandwiches. 10am was break time and after I had made the tea, the three of us took turns reading aloud a chapter from Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind’ – the name Tara still brings to mind the house from that book (even though I recently stood on the top of the hill with the same name in Ireland).

 

Reading and being read to was even a deciding factor in my marriage! One afternoon my future husband read to me ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’. His voice captivated me and I thought “he’ll do for me!” This title proved to be quite ironic as I followed him around the world as an Army wife when he decided to join up – and the voice not only charmed me but a hundred and one other women!

 

Marriage and motherhood took their toll on my love of reading. I used to read to my kids at night but found it made me tired not them and talk about yawning and tears of tiredness running down my cheeks! I enjoyed the occasional Catherine Cookson, but found English books quite difficult to come by living alongside the Malacca Straits in Malaya.

 

It was in the 1970s and 80s that I was finally reunited with my love but this time it was in the form of a very different type of book: Social and Economic History; Industrial Relations; Economics and even Law. I tell you, they pushed the old brain cells.

 

And the love affair still continues today but it is now like somebody on crack cocaine – it has become an addiction! I have ongoing books in every room of the house and even in the car. My choice of reading now covers almost every type of book ever written – except Mills and Boon and the like. No thank you, not for me!

 

So, now in 2008, what am I reading? At the time of writing, it is ‘The Pianist’ by Wladyshaw Szpilman, a story of the Nazi Occupation of Warsaw, told through the experiences of a Polish pianist. And I have just finished ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khalid Hasseini. A brilliant, brilliant story of Afghanistan. I am now keen to read ‘A Thousand Splendid Sons’ by the same author. I have also enjoyed ‘The Island’ by Victoria Hislop (and have her second book ‘the Return’ waiting to be read.

 

Like some people collect stamps, I collect favourite books and authors and these include:

 

‘When Rabbit Howls: The Troops for Truddi Chase’ a wonderful but harrowing true story of multiple personalities.

 

‘Ireland’ by Frank Delaney.

 

‘Blood and Sand’ by Frank Gardner. The BBC reporter who was shot in Saudi Arabia.

 

Plus anything written by Edward Rutherfurd, Ian Rankin, Margaret Forster, Douglas Kennedy, Peter Robinson and the Swedish writer Henning Mankill.

 

So, must finish now, my ‘love’ is calling me…I have a book to finish!