Random Jottings

Anne Bronte at 200

Anne Bronte was born two hundred years ago. It was her birthday yesterday so I am a tad late but I am sure she would have forgiven me.

There is something about the Bronte family that has always fascinated me ever since I read A Man of Sorrow, a biography of Patrick Bronte way back in the 60s when I was a mini-skirted library assistant in Highgate and one of our readers, a Bronte fan, recommended it to me and started my lifelong fascination with the inmates of Haworth Parsonage.

I know readers may wince, but I have to confess that I would rather have needles stuck in my eyes than read Wuthering Heights again (and yes, I know - extreme).  I agree it is powerful and stunning and all the adjectives and descriptions that scholars and more esteemed readers than I have given it, but I really dislike it intensely.   Out of Charlotte's works Jane Eyre is the one that pinned me to the wall when I first read it and I have lost count of the number of re-reads of this marvellous novel I have undertaken in my lifetime; Shirley I find a bit boring and rather uneven, a novel of three parts and none of them seem to flow. This is hardly surprising as she had to finish it while suffering the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne.   Villette is not a lovable book or as accessible as Jane but shows Charlotte at the height of her powers and though it is bleak and full of suffering and sorrow, and largely autobiographical, it is a magnificent work.  The Professor is very much Villette in embryo and suffers from being written from a man's viewpoint which was not totally convincing. It was turned down over and over again by various publishers until she put it to one side and it was reissued when she was famous.  Nothing new under the sun!

And so we come to Anne, the quiet sister, the self effacing sister, the one who is regarded as not being such a great writer as Emily and Charlotte, who seems to lurk in the shadow of her two elder siblings.  I have always felt that Anne was totally underestimated and unappreciated by the public who have based their viewpoint of her on Charlotte's own letters and portrayal of her as 'gentle Anne'.  Charlotte was a passionate creature, her emotions seething and her frustrations tearing her apart under that governessy exterior. Just read the Gondal sagas and her heroes and heroines of the the juvenilia to see what feelings she was repressing for which her only outlet was in her writing.  She let her imagination go off the scale when she created Rochester, just the sort of man she wanted who would sweep her off her feet and to hell with convention.  She may have criticised Jane Austen and not understood her but Darcy comes from the same cloth as her creation and I am surprised she did not realise this.  Jane Eyre was regarded as a 'naughty' book and mothers kept it from their daughters; Wuthering Heights was deemed 'coarse and brutal' so it was good to have a 'good' sister to counterbalance this criticism.  But while all this was going on, Anne was quietly and with great determination getting on with her life.

Against the wishes of the entire family she decided to take a post as a governess.  Her experiences form the basis of Agnes Grey a small book in length but searing in its portrayal of the family she went to live with and the dreadful behaviour of her charges.   She stuck it out for some time despite her father and sisters pleading with her to come home.  Later she took up another post with the Robinson family at Thorpe Green where she stayed for several years, to be joined later by Branwell who  was engaged as tutor to the sons of the family and then, allegedly, had an affair with his employer's wife resulting in scandal and disgrace.

Anne was stoic. She suffered as much as Charlotte and Emily when away from Haworth and working in uncongenial surroundings and with people she disliked, but unlike her two sisters she kept quiet and got on with it. Emily never lasted long away from her beloved moors and every time she tried she became ill and had to return.  When she and Charlotte went to Brussels the pattern repeated itself. A book has been written about Emily suggesting she could have been anorexic as she sickened and pined until she came home, but I think that she used this as a weapon to get her own way as she immediately recovered back safe in the Parsonage.  Charlotte raged against her pupils, particularly in Villette which is, as I have said, largely autobiographical and she had the added pain of falling in love with her teacher Paul Heger.  She stayed on in Belgium long after she should have returned and suffered the most appalling depression while she was there.

Charlotte and Emily tend to take centre stage and we know of their pain, anguish and misery from letters and writing. Not so with Anne and I do wonder sometimes if Charlotte spoke of Anne and her literary works in a somewhat slighting way because deep down she realised that her younger sister was, in fact, the strongest of them all.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, about is the story of an abusive marriage to a drunken husband and Anne used Branwell's behaviour and appalling end as her model for Arthur Huntingdon.  Her family were not happy about this book and did not want it published but, as always, Anne stuck to her guns and Tenant was issued.   Critics have said it is clumsy and uneven but I disagree.  I know that the first and last sections are in the first person of Gilbert, a young farmer who persists in his attentions to Helen Huntingdown when she moves to Wildfell Hall with her young son and refuses to be rejected until she hands him her diary to explain her situation.  The majority of the novel is then Helen's narrative and it does come as a bit of a bump when we jump back to Gilbert towards the denouement. However, I think it is a wonderful book and the more I have read it the more I have appreciated it and I now have a huge admiration for Anne. 

Even in death Anne was strong, full of fortitude, secure in her faith and determined to die without fuss and the least possible trouble to her family.  She went to Scarborough with Charlotte, knowing she would not return and not wanting her father to witness yet another death in the Parsonage.  Compare this with Emily who, quite frankly,  I sometimes want to shake for her so called bravery when dying when I think she was being plain selfish and an exhibitionist.  Others may weep at the thought of this strong woman staggering around the rooms clutching the furniture and refusing to see a doctor, thus ensuring the maximum amount of suffering for those who had to witness it all. Then the final collapse on the sofa and Charlotte rushing in with a piece of gorse from her beloved moors so she could smell it before she died.  Yes and call me cynical if you like, I don't mind.

Anne's death is so poignant.  She lay on a sofa in a room at the hotel and quietly passed away while a lunch party was taking place in the next room.  I find the contrast between these two events deeply sad and can never read of it without a lump in the throat. 

A letter from Charlotte: "A year ago - how a prophet warned me how I should stand in in June 1849, how stripped and bereaved - had he foretold the autumn, the winter, the spring of sickness and the suffering to be gone through, I should have thought this can never be endured. It is over, Branwell, Emily, Anne are gone like dreams, gone as Maria and Elilzabeth went twenty years ago. One by one I have watched them fall asleep  on my arm and closed their glazed eyes, I have seen them buried one by one and thus far, God has upheld me"

Charlotte then returned home and had to spend the winter alone in the front room at Haworth, with her father in his study, the grandfather clock ticking on the staircase and the endless silence.  If you read her letter describing her return and how she got through the first night, I defy you not to weep.   Charlotte revered Emily and almost ennobled her, but I do sometimes wonder if she did not realise the sure and certain strength emanating from her sober and seemingly serene younger sister until it had gone.

'I felt that the house was all silent, the rooms were all empty -I remembered where the three were laid, in what narrow dark dwellings, never were they to reappear on earth.  So the sense of desolation and bitterness took possession of me, that agony that was to be undergone and was not to be avoided came on.  The great trial is when night approaches - at that hour we used to assemble in the dining room ...now I sit by myself.  I cannot help thinking of their last days and their suffering - perhaps all this will become less poignant in time.   I dream of them and cannot recall them as they were in health. My nights were worse after the first shock of Branwell's death, they were terrible then and the impressions experienced on waking were at that time such as we do not put into language.  Worse seemed at hand than was yet endured - in truth worst awaited us'

After Anne’s death Charlotte tried to stop Tenant of Wildfell Hall being republished as she disapproved of the subject matter.  A bit rich from somebody who wrote about a heroine who fell in love with a man who had a mad wife in the attic.

As the years have gone by and I have re-read both Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall many times, I have re-evaluated them both and I have come to the conclusion that Tenant is the greater book.  I sometimes wonder if Charlotte maintained the “quiet Anne” the “meek Anne” idea because, deep down, she realised that her younger sister was perhaps the greatest writer of them all.....

T Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A re-read

I am finding it hard to get going with my reading so far. After Christmas I find I go into a slump/hibernation when I feel like doing nothing at all. And these days, being retired, I can do precisely that if I wish to.  So I do what I always do when I cannot settle to a new book - I pull down an old loved one from my shelves and do a re-read.

And I chose T Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My copy is a lovely old battered one with speckled edges and black and white line drawings. It was published by A L Burt Company whose address is given as 114120 East Twenty Third Street and this edition is dated 1913. I wonder how many people have read this copy? A nice thought to hold when reading.

Having read a biography or two about the author and knowing that her marriages and life was not totally satisfactory, I feel that she created stories with a Cinderella like quality and a happy ending to fulfil a need for happiness that she never achieved.   The Making of a Marchioness is another one these lines, poor, lonely and poverty stricken woman achieves a rich and wealthy marriage as well as love; A Little Princess where Sarah Crewe goes from wealth to poverty to wealth and happiness again; The Shuttle, an abused and unhappy wife is saved by her strong sister who also finds love in the doing; The Lost Prince in which the hero comes into his own kingdom and, of course, Little Lord Fauntleroy where a young child redeems the miserable and unhappy life of his grandfather, alone and lonely in his great house.

T Temberom is an orphan in New York. Left alone by the death of his mother who was married to a feckless Englishman, he has nobody to care for him and has to live by his wits.   This he does and gradually achieves a second hand society column in a local paper and a room in a boarding house. Here he meets Mr Hutchison, a Lancashire man who has come to the USA with an invention which will make his fortune, only it doesn't and he and his daughter Ann are on their uppers and soon to go back to England.    Ann or Little Ann as everyone calls her, is a wonder of virtue, wise advice and motherly instincts who could be a rather irritating character but she isn't, she escapes it somehow.  Burnett has the knack of knowing how far she can go with a 'good' person and stops short of making them totally insupportable and nauseating. 

T Tembarom falls in love with her and she with him but then the unexpected happens. An English solicitor calls at the boarding house to inform him that he is the last surviving relative of Temple Temple Barholm and the heir to a mighty estate in England.   He has to go there to claim his inheritance and Ann refuses to marry him until he has been there a year, seen and met with the cream of society before she will allow him to think of making her his wife.

So off he goes and with him goes a man who he rescued in New York when he discovered him homeless and ill with memory loss and not knowing who he was or where he came from.   He was an Englishman so T Tembarom thinks that being at home in his country might help him recover his health and strength and restore his memory.

Then we find out that the heir to the title and estate vanished in disgrace years before, accused of cheating at cards and fled to America and went gold prospecting and his death was reported after a mine explosion in which many perished.   He left behind the woman he loved, Joan, now bitter and unhappy and locked into a dreadful hateful relationship with her mother as they both clung to the edges of society, the only way out being a marriage for either of them. 

The scene is set:  a rough New Yorker inheriting the title, a missing heir, a man who has no recollection who he is, a bitter unhappy woman mourning her lost love, her scheming and malicious mother and the possibility that the missing heir might just be alive after all............

I love this book.   T Tembarom is an immensely likeable young man who takes everything thrown at him with cheerfulness and steadfastness, he sticks to his love Ann through thick and thin and the story of his rags to riches career is delightful.  While some of the servants despise him for an upstart, those he takes into his confidence and who help him with the everyday etiquette and dress and manners that he knows he lacks, become his devoted admirers and supporters. His easy way with the villagers and his care of their needs endear him to them as well and he is a character very easy to like and love.

This book is sentimental and warm and, of course, you know what is going to happen and what the ending will be but though I have read this many times and am familiar with the outcome, I find myself breathlessly reading the last few chapters and waiting for the denouement with great excitement.  I never tire of it and I never tire of reading and re-reading books by this author. I think Frances Hodgson Burnett is a wonderful writer and though she is known and rightly so, for her children's books, I maintain that her adult books are her best.   She was writing them long before Little Lord Fauntleroy sent her into JK Rowling territory and popularity.

As I said, sentimental and warm but at the heart of all of her books there are characters who are good and true and who are determined to do the right thing come what may.

I loved it all over again...

Mike Walmer - Publisher, eclectic and interesting list

A few years ago my name was given to Mike as somebody who might be interested in the kind of books he publishes, ie - out of print, forgotten or unknown titles that are deserving of a second chance.  There are many publisher out there now doing this and it is such a joy to leave the best seller lists and seek out something new waiting to be discovered.

Mike is based in South Australia and he publishes books lost to current readers from recent times a well as long ago, plus those which have a special meaning for him. The website is here so do please check it out.

At the moment I have awaiting my attention two titles by Ada Leverson - The Twelfth Hour and The Limit. About ten years ago I came across a title by this writer, The Little Otleys. This is a trilogy and I found one of those fantastic Virago editions with the Green covers which I love, in a jumble sale. I could not let it go even though I knew nothing about the author.

I soon discovered that Ada Leverson was a very close friend of Oscar Wilde.  He called her his 'Sphinx' and introduced her to all his fashionable friends, the equivalent of today's A list no doubt:  Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Max Beerbohm.  What a glittering array that must have been....

She sounds a wonderfully warm hearted woman when you read more about her and discover that during Wilde's trial she and her husband took him in and sheltered him.  On his release from prison two years later, when he was shunned and ignored by all his previous friends, Ada was the first to visit him and apparently was greeted by Oscar with the words 'Sphinx how marvelous of you to know exactly the right hat to wear at seven o'clock in the morning to meet a friend who has been away'.

I admire those who stick by their friends in the face of rejection and disgrace and I felt my heart warm towards her even before I had read the Little Otleys and when I had finished it and LOVED it, I began to check for more by Ada Leverson. Two have recently been published by Mike Walmer.

The Twelfth Hour is set in one of those long golden Edwardian seasons in London and tells the story of Felicity and Sylvie Crofton and their brother Savile and their marriage and love life. 

The Limit tells us about Valentina and Romer Wyburn - happily married, or so it seems but Valentina is fining her solid and devoted husband somewhat dull and starts an affair with an elegant but poor artist.

This is just a brief sketch of the outline as I have yet to read these two titles but they are on the top of my to Be read pile and I am looking forward to them.

Among other authors published by Mike are Saki (I read the Chronicles of Clovis and enjoyed. Sperb witty writing) Ronald Firbank and Max Beerbohm.

Mike is based in Australia but his books are distributed in the UK so there is no fear of heavy postage. I warmly recommend his website http://michaelwalmer.com and do urge you to take a look at his titles and authors.  I think the word eclectic is the correct one to descrie the selection.

You will not be disappointed.

2019 - Random Reading Thoughts

When I first started this blog some thirteen years ago now, I had such good intentions. I was going to read Serious Books. Books which were Good for Me by writers who were lauded as being the best. I looked at the Booker long lists, I chose, I read, I ploughed on.   I took up Reading Challenges. I made copious lists. I look back and think WHY? It was exhausting and the realisation crept up on me that I was reading in order to Keep up with the Joneses and to make people think of me as a serious reviewer.

Well I wasn’t and I am not. I am a book blogger who loves reading and wants to share that with my loyal readers. I don’t wish to write thoughtful dissertations on the Booker list, the Costa List, the Asda List or any other list (ok I made the last one up). I want to read because I enjoy what I am reading not because I want to appear an intellectual.   Mind you, it took a few years before this realisation dawned on me but I got there eventually.

So what have I read in 2019. Over 240 books and I can honestly say that the Litterati would turn up their noses but I really don’t care. I have found over the last few years that I have returned with a vengeance to my first love - Crime. When I was a teenager I discovered Agatha Christie and I have never looked back. But what has made this genre so enjoyable is the discovery of new Golden Age crime writers of whom I have never heard.  

The main reason for this rediscovery is the wonderful British Library Crime Classics library about which I have rhapsodised for the past five years or so and will continue to do so. Through them I have discovered Freeman Wills Croft, E R Lorac (which led me on to books written by this author under another name Carol Carnac), Alan Melville, George Bellairs, Miles Burton to name but a few. I am not saying that all that I have read I have enjoyed, some of them I have found a trifle ponderous and feel there was a reason why they languished in obscurity for years, but the main thing is that we are being given a chance to discover them again and it is wonderful.

Then an email one day from Dean Street Press - would I like to try some books by Moray Dalton a long forgotten crime writer? Well silly question. Yes please I say and off I go and I loved them.  There are more to come in March and please do check them out.

I have also read all the Peter Diamond books of Peter Lovesey set in Bath. Now I have already apologised to Peter as I first read his books years ago and I honestly had not read any more and thought he was dead....

Yes I know. Well Peter got in touch with me to say he was alive and well and the 19th Diamond book is due out next year. I wish Peter continued health and a long life so he can continue writing.....

I am also going to revisit his Inspector Lovesey books which I have not read for years. 

This year we saw the death of Andrea Camilleri author of the Inspector Montalbano books which I love dearly and I collect them all in hardback as they come out. I saw a delightful programme about him a few years ago and he said that he already written the last in the series, but there were a few more to come and he had written them well in advance so there would be plenty after he had gone. Now that is what I call forward thinking and I am very grateful to him.

In between I have read AN Wilson’s biography of Prince Albert which I freely admit I found a bit of a curate’s egg, Kenneth Rose diaries, deliciously gossipy and lighthearted and, naturally, when all else fails I have turned to my beloved Victorian literature. This year I have re-read David Copperfield and Great Expectations and loved them all over again. I am determined to read Dombey and Son next year - I keep starting it and giving up. I am not sure why.

And I have also read Jane Austen who soothes the soul like nobody else.

So no Book of the Year, just a hugely enjoyable twelve months of reading. I have given up on a lot of crappy books, I no longer waste my time with them. And I can tell you now I know within a page if I can carry on with a book - when a book is crap then it is crap and that is that.

And I hope UK readers have noticed that I have refrained from writing about the BBC new “darker” version of a Christmas Carol which they showed at Christmas. I wish to end the year on a nice happy joyous note and if I get started on this, well, it ain’t gonna happen.

Just take my word for it - it was AWFUL (to be fair quite a few people did like it but the majority did not).

I may save it up for a rant in 2020.

Happy New Year

May the next year be peaceful and happy for all you lovely peeps out there who read this blog and make me feel so happy when I hear from you all.

 

Merry Christmas

A Sustainable Christmas - another rant

You will probably remember my recent rant about magazines and how their banging on about empowering women etc irritated me beyond measure. If you do not and wish to read it, then the link is here.

I had a huge response both on and off blog about this posting. I have more or less given up on magazines now but last week I bought a Christmassy edition of a glossy just for a treat and to see what was being discussed. (Usually these mags say How to have the Best Christmas EVER, but as I had the best Christmas EVER last year according to them, not sure how I can top it).

No matter.

This one is of Vital Import.  It is a Guide to a Sustainable Christmas. Over 90 guilt free (or in this case gilt free) festive ideas.

I started to bristle before I even opened it. I noted the sub-title “from your decorations to the dinner table, how to have a celebration that packs a stylish punch without stressing the planet”

OK I am off. FFS. How about ideas about how not to stress yourself? The last thing on my mind when I am peeling the sprouts or stuffing the turkey is the planet. The ice cap can melt and the polar bears can become extinct as far as I am concerned when I am dealing with Christmas Lunch.

“Antiques are regarded as the most sustainable way to furnish your home”  it seems that whether you have a Georgian chest of drawers or a Victorian dinner service, these pieces tick all the boxes when it comes to longevity, style and a LOW CARBON FOOTPRINT (my capital letters).  I have to say that when I make a cup of coffee in my Coronation Mug dated 1953 the words carbon footprint have never crossed my mind.

Gifts – try to use independent shops in your area (in the sea of the High Street if you can find one that is not M&S, Debenhams, Matalan etc then good luck to you)

Wrapping gifts – plain brown paper is recyclable (a lot of the foil stuff is not it seems. We are told this with explanation marks!!!!!!!) you can glam it up by using stamps, twine or trimmings.

Home made presents – these are thoughtful and are GREEN. (Don’t make them too far in advance else the only green will be mould)

Make sure all presents are posted in good time. Well, YES.

After this you can relax as there will be no last minute department store dashes. There that makes you feel better doesn’t it?

Now you are so relaxed that come Christmas Eve you have plenty of time on your hands and so if you are not tearing your hair out and screaming because your husband/wife has forgotten the sweet sherry which is the only thing Gran will drink, and you have made 100 mince pies (whole meal pastry natch) and the cat hasn’t brought down the tree, then guess what you can do?  You never will. I know you won’t so I am going to tell you.

 Why not organize a family craft evening?

Yes a craft evening.

Children will love making popcorn garlands or pomander for the tree!!!!!

They will they will they will. Trust me.

Now if you have not bought your presents and are currently gnashing your teeth in frustration and panic may I offer you some suggestions?  “Learn the skills to give an extra-special environmentally friendly gift this year”   I presume you need to start learning these skills at least six months before hand.

So we are given details of workshops for candle making, wreath making (no not funeral ones), bread and baking, ceramic decorations, willow animals (Oh I lurve the idea of making willow animals. So useful) hand iced biscuits and Christmas lettering.

Decorations – make your own wreath. You need to get foraging folks and we are told that our back garden is a brilliant source of evergreen leaves (though what you do if you live in a flat I do not know) Yeh right. But don’t bring the greenery in too early else it will dry out.   Why not save it up to do on Christmas Eve? You know that family craft evening I mentioned earlier. You can do it at the same time.

If you have been sent “loads of gorgeous cards” then hang them on the wall using bio-degradable twine. Once that is done you can have a go at making some paper chains or snowflakes from your stash of scrap paper and materials.

What stash?

And we are back to the Night Before Christmas again.  “For a relaxed evening with the family why not make edible decorations for the big day? Garlands of popcorn and dried fruit for the tree, gingerbread baubles or posies of herbs (which you have foraged for in the back garden no doubt) are all kind to the planet”

All that is left to do is to sit back and “marvel at what you have achieved”

I mean who writes this total and utter bollocks? WHO WHO WHO?  Have they any idea what real life is like. Quite frankly by the time Christmas Eve has arrived the last thing you want to do it make edible decorations with your children.  If they are small all you want is to get the little sods into bed and asleep so you can creep in later and put the stockings at the end of their beds. If they are older they will be too busy on their Playstations or their ipads to be interested in stringing together dried figs or other crap.

But we are not finished yet. Oh NO. Now you need to take some time to yourself. HAH! Have a bath, a slug of gin, raid the peanuts?  That would be too common. No this magazine’s idea of time to yourself on Christmas Eve is to set the table for Christmas Dinner.

IRON the tablecloth (I do apologise for the shouting)

IRON the tablecloth gawd help us. We then “adorn” it with our favourite antique ceramics, glasses and cutlery. Some natural greenery and handmade place names (which presumably you have made during the family craft evening) will complete the look.

Antique drinks trolleys are a key trend….the mag says so therefore it is.

So now is the time to stock it up with glistening decanters, crystal glasses and mixers. If you don’t have a trolley (and let us face it most of us use the kitchen work surface) then why not set up a DIY drinks station on a sideboard or a window ledge?   Why not indeed – just make sure it is out of reach of children’s sticky fingers.

And if you survive this Mindful Sustainable Christmas then do not forget to Recycle in the New Year.  But if you have done what you are told, theoretically you should have nothing to chuck out.  No paper, no decorations (you have eaten them all) and as all your presents were wrapped in vintage napkins or tea towels (no I am not joking this was suggested) then cometh the bin men you will have nothing to show them.

After reading this magazine I felt the strongest urge to go out and buy the crappiest, most plastic toys I could find, wrap them in glittery non-recyclable wrapping paper, get a plastic Christmas tree, loads of non solar fairy lights, as much Blue Tac and Sellotape as I could lay my hands on and sit down on Christmas Eve stuffing my face with chocolate and drinking gin.

Which, let’s face it, is what most of us will do.

Bah Humbug.

This holier than thou, woke, virtue signaling load of bullshit magazine is now in the bin and I will not be recycling it.  So there.

Random Ramble on a Tuesday

My apologies for my absence. I have had a busy week, as probably we all are, with Christmas on the way.  Parcels have been sent to my daughter in Australia, the postage costing more than the contents, all shopping done and just the wrapping up to do which I undertake on Christmas Eve with Carols from Kings on the tv.

Last week I had my own Carols from Kings with the slight difference that it was Carols from St Johns. I went to Cambridge and attended a family concert in the afternoon held in the chapel at St Johns where my daughter Helen is a Fellow. The utter gorgeousness of Cambridge never fails to make my heart lift and I consider myself fortunate to have Helen there as I now have access to places which might be difficult otherwise.

 

It has been a horrid few years in the UK with the political scene and the deeply unpleasant sight of Parliament engaged in internecine fighting and backstabbing and my opinion of its inhabitants, which was never high, plunged to hitherto unimagined depths of contempt.  Now all that is over. No matter what political opinion one may hold, and I am not going to engage in that here on Random, we now have a government with a majority and the chance to govern instead of naval gazing. 

That feeling of thankfulness and utter relief was with me on Saturday and though I know God does not take sides, I did send up a little prayer in the chapel that perhaps we could all start being a bit nicer to each other in the year ahead. We shall see.

The service was delightful and aimed at children. The vicar or canon or whoever (not sure of the hierarchy in college) gathered the children around him on the steps of the altar. Beatrice would only come if I went with her which I did (getting up afterwards was a trifle problematic) and told the Christmas story with the use of different bars of chocolate. Very amusing and ended up by telling us that Marvels had happened, Herod was up to his old Twix etc et. Went down very well.

We then had lit candles and processed around the chapel and out into the lobby singing O Come all ye Faithful when the organ thundered out. Before the Blessing the organist went potty - played a collection of carols with all the stops out and the sound shook the rafters. It was simply wonderful and I came out in goosebumps. I found the whole afternoon quite emotional and was on the verge of tears most of the time. The sound, the beauty, strolling with my family around St Johns afterwards on a glorious winter afternoon, sun going down, what a day.

I have to say the tea in the hall afterwards was sumptuous! And just to let you know that I do not live on a higher plane all the time, in the evening I babysat and the girls and I sat in our onesies with drinks, chocolate and Pringles and watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing.....

Read a couple of Christmas mags this week. Be warned. A rant is on the way.

Slightly Foxed Christmas Prize Draw - Result

Good morning everybody wherever you are. In the UK it is pretty chilly so I am sitting her in my dressing gown and keeping warm until I can get myself into gear and get dressed.

I have now done the draw for the lovely prize of the two Rosemary Sutcliff novels published by Slightly Foxed. I folded all the bits of paper up carefully so I could not see any names and stirred them round.

And the winner is:

Please contact me Jenny with your details and I will pass them on to Slightly Foxed and ask them to get the books out to you so you have them for Christmas.

I don’t know where you are located but SF said they will post anywhere.

Congratulations and thank you to all of you who took part.

Rosemary Sutcliff - Slightly Foxed Christmas Prize draw

A few weeks ago I read Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff in the gorgeous new edition from Slightly Foxed. I had not read these Roman Britain novels as a child as I always preferred her stories set in the Tudor period. Well, I missed out on a treat then, but discovered them later on in life where I think I appreciated them more than I would have done as a teenager.  My thoughts on Eagle of the Ninth were posted here.

Since then I have read the next book in the series, The Silver Branch, and found the same enchantment, the same breathless excitement in the fight and/or flight scenes. I do not know how she does it, but I found them totally gripping and filled me with tension until I finished reading.  Sue Gainsford recently wrote about the two books on the Slightly Foxed website and this is what she had to say about the final battle:

"Near the end of The Silver Branch (1957) comes a nail-biting, heart-pounding account of the epic battle, nearly a hundred years later, that famously ended in the destruction of Calleva (modern Silchester, where still the evidence of former glories and catastrophes can be glimpsed). As the battering-ram beats down the great gates of the basilica, and the horde of screaming barbarians pour through, with slaughter in their hearts, fire leaps up to the rafters, engulfing those sheltering there in waves of black, acrid smoke. High up in the blazing building the young surgeon Justin Aquila is, like his ancestor Marcus, careless of his own life – ignoring the advancing flames he cradles an elderly, fatally wounded gladiator and comforts him by conjuring up memories of the crowds who cheered his victories long ago, in the arenas of Rome. It is magnificent stuff"

Yes it is magnificent stuff and the power and beauty of Sutcliff's writing is quite breathtaking.  There are two other books in this series, The Lantern Bearers and Frontier Wolf. They are due to be published in the autumn of 2020 and I am not sure I can bear to wait that long - but I will. Well, I have to....

What I love about these new editions is that they retain the original illustrations. The Eagle of the Ninth was illustrated by C Walter Hodges who I absolutely love. (I have a copy of the Little White Horse on my shelves, a very old hardback edition with his enchanting drawings and I cherish it) and The Silver Branch by the  by the equally wonderful Charles Keeping. I love the way these illuustrations surround the text on certain pages, like a tapestry and so beautifully drawn and imagined.

This is a slightly wonky picture taken from my copy but I just wanted you to see just how these marvellous black and white drawings add to the narrative

Now those lovely peeps at Slightly Foxed have very kindly said they will send a copy of the first two novels in this series to a lucky recipient. They post all over the world so there is no border limit here.

So I will ask those of you who would like the chance to lay your mitts on these WONDERFUL books to leave a comment below and tell me which is your favourite Rosemary Sutcliff novel. Though this will have no bearing on the choosing of the winner (I will draw names out of a hat) I am just interested in hearing about the stories you love by this author.

Today is 2 December and I will leave the draw open until 6 December and I will make the draw then. I want to leave plenty of time to enable the winner to receive the books before Christmas.

And if you do not win, then please consider sending a bijou bank transferette to Slightly Foxed and buy them. You will not regret it.

Good luck xx