David Bowen
A Reading from Grandma
Book: Woman: Her charm and power
When my sisters and I cleared out our parents’ house, I ended up with a curious book. It is called Woman: Her charm and power, it was written by Robert P Downes LL.D. and it was published in 1900 by Charles H Kelly of London. My copy is inscribed to my grandmother, Gertrude, ‘from her schoolfriend Phebe’, in August 1919. As this was four years after her wedding it can’t have been pre-nuptial advice. Post-nuptial perhaps?
It is a bit hard not to see it a spoof: Harry Enfield’s ‘Women! Know your limits’ sketch could be based on it. For example: ‘The average woman is unquestionably deficient in the matter of reflective thought. Serious thinking is regarded by the majority of women as unnecessary and a bore.’
Or: ‘How seldom does a woman arrest herself to ask “Who, and what am I?”, “Whence came I?”, “Whither am I going?” … There are few men who have not paused to consider questions such as these.’
I spend a lot of time reading the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (I do a quiz based on it). Sometimes a century ago seems like yesterday; sometimes a very long time ago. Woman: Her charm and power, is very much in the second group. What I’d really like to know is: What did granny think of it, and did Phebe stay her friend?
Richard Axtell
Who is Mildred Hincks?
Book: The Short Stories of H.G. Wells
Here is what we know:
Mildred was alive around 1927. Her name is written on the first page in black ink, handwriting neat, but slightly rushed. The letters rise and fall like mountain peaks, slowly drifting further and further apart. She leaves a gap every third or fourth letter, breaking up her name into four sounds: Mil-dred-Hin-cks. Then, with a swift flick of her pen, she underlines it.
I think Mildred was a dreamer. After all, why else would she own a book of HG Wells’ short stories? I imagine her parents (or perhaps a stuffy husband) rolled their eyes when they caught her, nose deep in her book, reading about time travel or some other adventure. “Mildred, put that down and…” (insert something relevant from the 1920’s here. All I can think about is that weird Great Gatsby film with Leonardo DiCaprio. I struggle to see Mildred as a flapper, but who knows?)
What we can be absolutely sure of is that at some point, Mildred and her book parted ways. The book went on a journey, ending up in Hay-on-Wye somewhere around 2013 (I still have a bus ticket tucked into the book as a bookmark). It was picked up by someone who thought it would be cool to have an old short story collection on their shelves.
If I’m honest, it smells a bit weird, and I don’t really read it. Sorry, Midred!
Irene Lofthouse
Getting Youngsters Interested in History
Book: Folklore, Myths and Legends of the British Isles
My first job, a shoe-shop window dresser. Exciting, interesting. Not. Working with lasses mooning and oohing over my brothers, or make up, clothes. I took refuge in Folklore, Myths and Legends of the British Isles, a Reader’s Digest book club choice I persuaded Dad to get it some years earlier. Supernatural stories always fascinated me: leprechauns, fairy rings, caves with King Arthur that stole several decades from the stranger who entered.
The book entranced me. I learned so much of history, archaeology, geography, cultural beliefs, migrations, music, art – and even better – supernatural, strange, odd and eerie happenings. It fuelled my interest in history, and what folklore, myths and legends can tell us about society and people. So many places I wanted to visit.
That fuelling led to me returning to school to do history A level, then a degree. I’ve visited many of the places. I’ve also rewritten and re-imagined some of them in my children’s collections Strange Tales in the Dales, and Strange Tales in Bradford Dale.
Researching last week, I discovered a review by Bob Duckett the 2015 Bradford Antiquary of which I’ve never seen. It opens, ‘What a delightful read this is!’ ending, ‘How to get youngsters interested in history is ever a problem. Maybe Irene Lofthouse has the answer…’
I do. Folklore, Myths and Legends of the British Isles. I still have it, but I’m not sharing. Youngsters will have to get their own.
(P.S. Turns out it’s a favourite of Kate Mosse, and I didn’t realise how much they go for online!)
Wendy Jones
Language Barrier
Book: Hynafiaethau Yr Iuddewon
I’m rather spoilt for choice when it comes to weirdness on the bookshelves. I could have gone for Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book (1966 edition), Teach Yourself Persian or a 1970s Morris Minor Handbook.
But poking around the other day, definitely the strangest – and dustiest – book I came across was a volume of Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews in Welsh (Hynafiaethau Yr Iuddewon). Josephus (I had to look him up) was a Roman-Jewish historian who lived 2,000 years ago and wrote in Greek and Hebrew; the Welsh translation is 19th century.
Disappointingly I don’t understand Welsh so I can only tell you that the print is dense and the images biblical-looking. Nor do I have any memory of how I came to possess the book. The obvious answer is that it comes from a member of my extended Welsh-speaking family. However tucked into the book is a 1953 rates bill for four pounds and thirteen shillings from the Borough of Swansea. My Welsh family are all from Anglesey at the opposite end of the country.
But someone somewhere must once have read Hynafiaethau Yr Iuddewon. Or at least dipped into it…
Christina Woodger
A Souvenir
Book: Les sortilèges de Jalna
On my bookshelf, unread by me, sits my grandmother’s copy of Les sortilèges de Jalna (Variable winds at Jalna, Mazo de la Roche).
Although written in English, it only really ‘exists’ for me in its French translation. Growing up, my Grand-mère had little leisure time for reading, being fully occupied with housework, raising her siblings and helping her parents in the Resistance. As an adult, she felt that her reading level was lower than it should be. A friend introduced her to the Jalna series, awakening a lifelong love of books that she passed down to us.
For some reason – probably storage constraints – this is the only Jalna we kept: the penultimate volume (I now learn from Google) chosen at random when we emptied her house. I delay and delay reading it, afraid I might enjoy it and regret Oxfamming the others (an irrational fear, since I can buy or even find free online copies of most). As I write this, I realise the real fear is that I’ll want to discuss Jalna with my Grand-mère and regret having missed the chance to do so.
Even unread, it’s a souvenir, or keepsake, of a key moment in my Grand-mère’s reading journey.
They drove on in silence. Then they were in the familiar road, with its spreading trees, and the quiet fields and orchards of Jalna lay on the left. They were in the driveway, that green tunnel that looked cool but still was breathlessly hot.
–Variable winds at Jalna (1954)