This month’s blogsync is a lovely concept: an exploration of
the books that shaped a person’s life. There are more entries here, but here’s
my effort. Well, part of it.
I love big books and I cannot lie. I love them in every
shape, colour and form. I am drawn to Waterstones, Amazon and Oxfam like a
magnet. I could, in fact, spend weekends reading and looking for books. The
family, and real life, thankfully get in the way of things. If it wasn’t for my
family, I would feature in a Channel 5 documentary on someone that hoards books
that they can’t wash. My daughters and their exponential need for space means
that there is a healthy culling of books every few months.
But, where did this love of reading come from? Was it borne
from a family steeped in books? Was is it borne from an awe-inspiring English
teacher? Was it borne from a special book that hooked me for life? Sadly, it
was none of these. In truth, I can’t pinpoint what made me love reading – just as
much as I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I loved red wine. It just happened. I
like to think of the ‘reading bug’ being something that happened gradually over
night. You never saw it happen during the day, but it hit you when you were quietly
or nosily sleeping. My reading habit can only be described as eclectic.
Well, at the tender age of seven I was hooked on reading
with the book ‘David Copperfield’ by
Charles Dickens – I am joking. My childhood memory of reading concentrates on
some special books. In a dark dark village and in a dark dark house and in a
dark dark room I was read to by my parents books such as ‘Funny Bones’ by Allan Ahlberg and ‘Meg and Mog’ by Helen Nicoll. And, if I am honest, that’s where my
odd taste for books that make no narrative sense stems from. Both books defy
logic at times, but the beauty of the writing and the simplicity of ideas is
that they stay with you to this day. Plus, the drawings are another part of the
special magic. It is no surprise that Julia Donaldson is so popular at the
moment. She combines all three with aplomb.
Now, all these books are read to my daughters.
Another early memory of reading stems from primary school.
Mrs Glasson was my teacher and a regular routine for us was to sit down to read
Enid Blyton's ‘The Enchanted Woods’. I
can vividly recall sitting down to read the story as a class. Each time we read
a different student sat with Ted – a teddy bear with green dungarees. Nothing
says childhood like dungarees. I recall feeding Ted (myself) sweets as I
listened enrapt in the story. Often, when I teach a novel I think back to this
moment fondly. If only I could recreate it with a group of Year 11s. Come on,
Tom, feed Ted as we read ‘Of Mice and
Men’. It was the collective reading
and shared experience I loved so much. Even to this day, I often ask people in
conversations what they are reading so I can share the reading experience more.
When I was eight, my family moved to Cyprus for two years. It
was an idyllic experience with school for a few hours in the morning and the
rest of the day spent exploring the beautiful and untouched island. It comes as
no surprise that later in life I would come to adore ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ by Louis de Bernieres and Gerald Durrell’s ‘My Family and Other
Animals’. I would often find snakes and strange creatures in the garden and
scrub land at the back of our house. Sadly, there was very little to do there
when it was cold, so I started reading ‘The
Three Investigator’ books by M. V. Carey. They usually amounted to a group
of boys investigating rum goings which usually amounted to unmasking some form
of smuggling. Smuggling was ‘rife’ in Cyprus in the 1980s, so I could clearly identify
with things. It was pure escapism and I swallowed them up. Added to this escapism
was my pure joy of Greek myths. Little did I know that this fascination would
help my literature degree. I had my own copy of Greek myths and I would read
them daily and copy out the stories in my own little books. Things were made real
by the constant visits to various places associated with the legends. I swam
where Aphrodite was born and visited the numerous temples to the gods on the
island. This led to me reading about Egyptology, which then led to a visit to Egypt for
a birthday present.
We moved back to Wales for my first year of secondary school
and the world changed in many ways. I stopped being the adventurous child and became
a sulky teenager overnight. There are very few photographs that show me smiling
at this time. If I am honest our move to Wales, was not the best of experiences
for me. I moved from a country where you can do anything to a small parochial
village in Wales where you couldn’t do anything. The nearest city was an hour away.
It felt like a slow death to a teenager. The whole universe was growing up,
having fun, and I was left out, in a village of about 200 people. In truth,
they were not having fun, but it didn’t help me at the time. It would explain
why I enjoyed ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ as an A-level
student. They taught me how others saw ‘the skull beneath the skin’. I like
reality. Real things happening to real people. I didn’t want happy things. I
was sad and I wanted to read sad stuff.
During these depressing times, I retreated into ‘pap’
reading, as I like to call it. I read and read ‘Doctor Who’ novels. I would constantly read the books by Target
publishers. They were simple and quick descriptions of the television stories.
The prose was sparse, but I lapped them up and read them all, if not most of
them over a couple of years. By the time
I was 15, I had amassed a massive collection of books, which I have only recently
sold. It was also during this phase that I started reading Doctor Who fanzines
and magazines. In fact, I was a regular writer to a fanzine and if I am brave enough
one day, I might share them on here.
The library became my haven. It was a small library and it
seemed, at the time, to hold copious amounts of ‘Mills and Boon’ books and
large quantities of large print books on cowboys – must be a welsh thing. It
would seem that I enjoyed science-fiction books; I didn’t. Even to this day, I
don’t. I really struggle with fantasy and science-fiction books. I have tried
and the ones I have enjoyed are the classics ‘Day of the Triffids’ and ‘The
War of the Worlds’. My mother is an avid reader of fantasy fiction, but I
would rather walk on hot-coals than read one of her books. Too many dragons and
silly names for my liking. I, in my attempt to be contemporary and of the moment,
bought the complete set of ‘The Lord of
the Rings’ in the vain attempt to read them. I couldn’t get past the dwarf
songs. That was my limit. Oh, and the talking, walking tree people. The endless
discussions I have had about how I couldn’t stomach the tree people. Nah, I don’t
buy it. Magic rings and small people with hairy feet I can stomach. Talking
trees are just too much for me.
Anyway the library was a regular haunt at weekends. I would
borrow loads of book, but I’d often be drawn to other sections. For some strange
reason, I was drawn to the true story section and especially the haunted /
ghost books. The ‘Ghost Sightings of the
British Isles’ book and various others on a similar theme became my new addiction.
I became hooked and read all the different stories and tales. At that time, my
English teacher was reading ‘The Snow
Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo, which focused on some of the myths of Wales and some
extra magic for good measure. It is sadly the one book I can actually recall from my English lessons, which is sad as I must have read some other books. But, alas all I can remember is this one. Worse still, I can't even remember my GCSE texts.
Then, I started my A-levels and enjoyed them. My love of Victorian
literature stemmed from this time. In particular, my reading of ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys. Yet,
like most students, I didn’t dive into literature at this point; I was on the outskirts.
I waited to be told what to read. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Jane Eyre’ and read and
discussed it openly, but I didn’t do anything else. I felt that I had really
engaged with a book for the first time. However, like Jane’s journey in the
wilderness, I was lost metaphorically with reading. I read Doctor Who books in
my free time and nothing else. I was a bit directionless with reading.
It was a bit surprise when I took it on myself to go to university.
And that’s where I learnt to read ‘proper’ books with big words and fancy
titles. Oh, but that’s another chapter….
Thanks for reading
Xris
