Random Jottings

Sanditon - Jane Austen

All Jane Austen fans will be eagerly looking forward to next Sunday when, in the UK anyway, a dramatisation of Sanditor is scheduled.  Any fragment by Jane that can be used in this way is seized upon with joy and I am very much looking forward to seeing what is going to be done with it.

Sanditon was left in manuscript at Jane Austen's death in July 1817 which ended at Chapter 12. So there is not much to deal with as with The Watsons (another fragment which will I am sure end up being dramatised at some stage).

In Sanditon, which was untitled when Jane died, she moves away from her usual setting of families in the countryside and writes, what Kathryn Sutherland in the OUP edition, calls "the first seaside novel".   In Emma we know that she longs to visit the seaside but has yet to do so, in Persuasion we have the famous fall by Louisa Musgrove at Lyme Regis.and in Mansfield Park there is an episode where Fanny visits her family in Portsmouth.  Jane visited the seaside and there have been theories that Sanditon is Sidmouth in Devon but she is very vague aboaut the topography so hard to prove one way or the other.

OUP Classics have produced a new edition of Sanditon edited by Kathryn Sutherland who I have already mentioned.  She is a professor of English literature and Senior Research Fellow at St Anne's Oxford, and here she has written an extremely interesting introduction to the text. 

Another edition, recently published, is issued by Fentum Press in a rather delightful hard back edition and has an introductory essay by Janet Todd. Janet is the General Editor of the Cambridge Works of Jane Austen and also edits the Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice. Another fascinating essay on the novel with beautiful colour illustrations throughout.  

here is a list of continuations at the end of the book and some of these I know, some I do not.  It seems a two hour film using Marie Dobbs completion was proposed but nothing has been heard since.

And it is to Marie Dobbs that I now turn. I have a copy of her continuation which was published in 1975 and it has been on my book shelves for years. I worked at Camden Libraries during this period and was sorting through a pile of books which had been withdrawn and were going to be pulped. When I spotted Sanditon I knew I could not allow it go and came home with it.  I rather enjoyed this version. Janet Todd says "it resembles Georgette Heyer's sort of romantic comedy (which is a good thing as far as I am concerned!) and drops the broad satire on medicine and invalid tourism of the Austen original".

I also have to mention Set in the Silver Sea by Jane Austen and A Gentleman which I discovered by chance about a year ago. The author is one David Williams and seems to be self published. I have a copy awaiting my attention and the only reason I have yet to read it is that is enormous. Not a small paperback but the size of a coffee table book so not easy to hold and read.

The dramatisation coming up has been scripted by Andrew Davies who is famous for "sexing up" the classics as he puts it. While I am not decrying his use of the dive in the lake by Darcy in P & P, it can get a bit tiresome after a while as he does rather labour the point. About eighteen months ago Davies produced a dramatisation of War and Peace which was beautiful to look at, but oh so slow and dreary. He managed to introdue incest into it because he said that Tolstoy had hinted at it. Well, I was not about to re-read War and Peace to find out but it seemed to me to be stretching it a bit.

As Sanditon is set by the sea I am sure there will be plenty of Andrew Davies frolics on the shore and nude bathing, but no matter what I am looking forward to this immensely.

 

Lazy Random

Once again I have let time go by and not posted. I have been reading up a storm that is why and I also was in London last week for this wonderful exhibition so I hope you will forgive me.

Three R's - Received, Reading and Re-Reading

Time to sit down and get up to date on the blog again. I simply do not know where the time goes. I have a list of subjects to write about and they are niggling away at me. So first up a general catch up.

Anglican women Novelists - ed Judith Maltby and Alison Shell

Now this looks really interesting. Somebody, I do not know who but I am grateful, mentioned this on Twitter and I immediately checked it out as it sounded right up my reading alley. In the foreword I see that this book began as a chance conversation some years ago at an academic conference in the US when it was discovered that the two editors had been reading Charlotte M Yonge and Rose Macauley on their flights. The idea for these essays was hatched but took some years to produce - and here they are.

There are essays on Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Oliphant, Charlotte M Yonge, Dorothy L Sayers, Barbara Pym, P D James, Noel Streatfield and one of my all time loved authors, Elilzabeth Goudge. I have yet to start reading this book as I am savouring the joy I know awaits me and I want to ponder on this a bit longer. Sounds daft but it is so good to know I have a treat waiting me.

The Young Victoria - Deirdre Murphy

A beautifully produced book by Yale with that gorgeous smooth silky paper that academic publishers use. Stuffed with paintings and fascinating illustrations I am taking my time with this one as it is another to savour.  The author, Deidre Murphy, sadly died and it is due to the efforts of her colleagues at the Historic Palaces and Yale that this book was published.  Deidre takes the view that Queen Victoria had a somewhat jaundiced view of her childhood which was not as daunting or as unpleasant as she led us to believe and, indeed, some of her diaries and notes show that she was loved and adored and had a delightful childhood.   I think the main problems came later after the death of her father and when her mother came under the influence of John Conroy.  So many books out this year because of the 200th year anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth but this is sheer delight.

And then Re-reading.   I had the pleasure of meeting Jane Thynne at the Felixstowe Book Festival a few weeks ago when she gave a talk on her Clara Vine books, set in pre-war Berlin and this made me want to re-read them. So I have embarked on this and am really enjoying going back and refreshing my memory. When I first read them there was obviously a gap between each one and I find I had forgotten some of the details and it is good to go straight through them one after the other and follow the over arching narrative.

This link will enable you to click onto my reviews of two of her books:

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2015/04/a-war-of-flowers-jane-thynne.html

I mentioned Kate Rhodes recently and decided to do a re-read of the Alice Quintin books again and, once more, enjoyed them thoroughly.  It was good to be with her right from the start and to see how her relationship with DCI Burns slowly develops. 

After reading the latest it sounded as if they had come to and end (and the author has a new series set on the Scilly Isles) but after querying this with the author she tells me Alice may come back. I do hope so.

I have a very battered old copy of The Common Years by Jilly Cooper. The edition available at the moment is a "new" one, 1999. I think I have had mine since the eighties and it has delightful line drawings and has a lovely cover. I have it by my bedside table and am reading a chapter or two a night.

How I love Jilly! She writes beautifully with the most hilarious puns which I love (I know some don't) and I am finding myself enjoying this book all over again.

I am having a quiet week after a very busy time and am really enjoying the peace and quiet.  This goes for my reading too which is relaxed and easy.

I attended the van Gogh exhibition at Tate Britain this week and more of that anon. It was wonderful

 

 

 

A Baroque evening

Catching up on posts after lying around in a sweltering heap and I am currently in my bedroom with the curtain drawn so decided to get on with it.  Before the tennis season started and before I went to Queens and then spent two weeks yelling at the tv while watching Wimbledon, I had an evening of pure tranquility and delight.

I attended a concert of Baroque music at St Mary’s Church, Perivale. The concerts here are organised by Hugh, the father of my son in law James (wish there was a word to describe this relationship but there does not appear to be one) and though I have wanted to attend for some time this was the first occasion I actually managed to get there. It will not be the last.

The concerts at this church are on You tube video channels so do check them out and some of them are livestream so you can sit and home and watch in comfort if you so wish. Hugh has been running these concerts for years and he has a waiting list of performers who wish to come here. I hope to attend many more.

St Mary’s is small and beautiful. It is cheek by jowl to Ealing Golf Club which sounds an odd juxtoposition and I did wonder if any hard hit golf balls ever smashed a stained glass window.  It is tucked out of sight down a lane and I found it quite delightful. The night I attended it had been raining and then cleared and there was that gorgeous smell of wet earth and grass after a shower which I always find invigorating.

Now I have to own up here that I never used to like or appreciate baroque music. I am a fan of opera, Verdi and Wagner and I love a full orchestra going like the clappers and wallowing in Mahler etc.  But then I became involved in the Suffolk Villages Festival, music director Peter Holman, and my viewpoint changed. I originallly was drawn in as my then husband performed at the Festival and gradually I became interested. I joined the committee and ended up as Chairman. I viewed my role as Chairman as an organising one to ensure that the nuts and bolts of the Festival ran smoothly so that the musicians and performers had to worry about nothing but their music.   So I did not feel that my lack of knolwedge of this genre would stop me from fulfilling this role. I have to say that when I mentioned in passing to Peter Homan that I preferred Wagner to Vivaldi, he was giving me a lift at the time, he nearly put the car in the ditch...

But the longer I became involved the more I grew to love Arne, Purcell, Bach, Handel and other less well known composers. OK I will be honest. I had not heard of most of them.  There is a preciseness and cleanness in this kind of music, everything is pure and straight and uncluttered. It reminds me of reading a beautiful piece of prose or poetry with no fuss, no extra ornamentation (though quite a lot of that does turn up), it just feels right somehow. I am not expressing it very well. Let me just say that years ago after spending three years attending the English Ring Cycle at the ENO (nine performances of each four operas and then two complete cycles) I found I needed to listen to smaller music and I then turned to Mozart. Think of cleansing the palate after a huge meal.

This concert ‘Baroque Heroes’ featured Handel, Purcell, Bach, Fischer and that well known composer Anon. The performance was  given by the Florisma Baroque Ensemble with the soprano Penelope Appleyard and I sat back and loved every single moment of it. We had a harpsichord, baroque cello and an astonishing display of recorders and they all performed with style and virtuosity.

Do check out their website http://florismabaroque.com/ to learn more about them

After the concert was over we all went back to Ealing, I was lucky enough to be staying with Hugh and his wife Felicity (AKA The Other Grandparents) and we ended up chilling out with a glass of wine.

It was a perfect evening.

Random Reading

OK I have written enough about the tennis and ranted so time to get back to the nitty gritty and let you know about current reading.

In the summer months I tend to read much lighter stuff and save What I Call Proper Reading until the winter.So a whole slew of light frothy, Regency romances.  Years ago Georgette Heyer would remark wearily "oh the plagiarist is at it again" when a certain author published a book.   All I can say is after reading about ten titles in the last couple of weeks I found a certain glee in spotting which plotline had been lifted. Cries of "oh it is An Infamous Army or Frederica or The Grand Sophy" were uttered by me on a regular basis and in the case of one of them, I even recognised the dialogue.  Incredible.  There is another writer who lifted a plotline, dialogue, the lot from a Heyer which was so blatant i was staggered. That writer is still alive and still writing rubbish...

And, natch, I have been reading loads of crime.  At the moment I am reading Kate Rhodes. She wrote a series of books featuring a profiler, Alice Quintin, which I really enjoyed.  She then produced a series of books with a new protagonist set on the Scilly Isles, the Ben Kitto series.. I am reading these and enjoying them very much but wishing she would do another Alice book when I suddenly spot she has, Fatal Harmony. So flick of the finger and it is now on my Kindle. She is an excellent writer, good plotting and great characters. I can recommend them.

Death of a Busybody - George Bellairs. Love this author's books. I discovered him a while back, thanks to the British Library, and have spent a lot of time downloading his books - there are plenty available for Kindle. His Inspector is Littlejohn and he is a kindly and doughty character who I like immensely.

Miss Tither, the busybody of the title, is a nasty piece of work seeking out scandal and bombarding the villagers with religious tracts. She is found face down in a septic tank, a suitable end one might think, and there are no shortage of suspects.   The vicar in this title has the incredible name of Ethelred Claplady. Wonderful!

Death in Dark Glasses - George Bellairs. I came across this title in a second hand bookshop in Cromer. I admit I found this one very convoluted and rambling and not as good as some of the others . As Bellairs wrote about a hundred I gather it is hardly surprising there is the odd dud.

Murder in the Mill Race - E C R Lorac.  Since the British Library published this author, I have tracked down quite a few titles, some are mind boggling they are so expensive, but I have managed to get hold of a few. I do hope that more of these are produced by the BL in the future. I am delighted to say that it was I who suggested this title last year as I purchased a battered old edition and enjoyed it.

Sister Monica, warden of the local children's home, is found floating in the mill-race.  She is loathed by most of the villagers as she hunts out their nasty little secrets (much like the Busybody above) and the locals are unwilling to tell what they know. Inspector Macdonald, another lovely character, arrives to sort it all out. Another excellent read.

I have also read two titles by Carol Carnac, the other name used by E C R Lorac. Inspector Rivers is in  in these and is a laconic rather elegant man, shades of Roderick Alleyn I think, but are written in a different less easy style than under her other name. More wordy and less action and can get bogged down. I enjoyed them though. One was Affair at Helen's Court and the other Death in Triplicate.

And, as I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the murders and detection, I read Mohawk Valley by Ronald Welch. I have this fantastic series of books about the Carey family from Slightly Foxed who republished them all a couple of years ago.  I loved reading these as a teenager and they tell the story of the Carey family starting with the Crusades and coming up to World War 1.  I have been saving the last two titles as I wanted to savour them and suddenly the time was right to read them.  They are so good and I am hoping that my two grandchildren might read them later.

And today I read If I were you by PG Wodehouse. Not one of his funniest, it did not have me with tears pouring down my face or reducing me to hysterics like some of his other titles have done, but just sheer joy to read such elegant, pointed prose, falling into place and giving me a lovely mellow feeling. Re the butler "Slingsby loomed in the doorway like a dignified cloudbank"

Perfect.

Wimbledon 2019 - Random Rant

 

Breaking News.  Sir Andy Murray is BACK. He has had a HIP OPERATION. REMEMBER WHEN HE LIMPED OUT OF WIMBLEDON AGAINST SAM QUERRY? TRAGEDY.

Now he is back and it is:

1. A miracle
2. Lovely to see him smiling again and pain free
3. He looks so happy to be on the Court
4. Who would have thought we would see him again
5. Remember his tears at the Australian Open?
6. He just wants to play tennis (er YES)
7. He has no expectations
8. He is not worried if he wins or not (oh Yes he is)
9. Who would have thought...blah blah blah

Ok repeat 1-9 ad nauseam Don’t get me wrong I have missed Andy and yes it IS wonderful to have him back and the crowds are loving it too, but blimey, cannot the likes of Andrew Castle and John Lloyd and the other drones think of something else to say.

Now did you know that DAN EVANS HAD A DRUG BAN AND IS BACK?

So here he is and it is:

1. A joy to see
2. He has learned his lesson
3. Owes so much to those who stood by him
4. Particularly his lovely girlfriend
5. He has grown up at last
6. Now finally fulfilling his talent
7. He has gone on the road to redemption (yes really somebody said that)
8. Who would have thought blah blah blah

OK repeat 1-9 ad nauseam.

He came off court after a good match, sweat pouring down him and almost in tears and some Dopey Woman asks “Were you thinking of all those who supported you when you were out after your DRUGS BAN when you were playing?” He replied he was grateful to the crowd who got behind him though by the look on his face he just wanted to tell her to bugger off.

COCO GRAUFF HAS ELECTRIFIED WIMBLEDON

Did you know

1. She beat VENUS WILLIAMS in the first round? You didn’t? Where have you been?
2. She is only fifteen
3. She is a breath of fresh air
4. A STAR IS BORN
5. She is sooo composed on court
6. She will win this (McEnroe was the only sensible one who said he hoped it was not this year)
7. Gosh when was the last time somebody this young won Wimbledon (it was Martina Hingis actually)
8. She is the darling of the fans
9. She is the darling of the Press

OK repeat 1-9 ad nauseam

Leave her alone. The media attention she is going to get will be appalling and I guarantee when she hits a bad streak they will be in full What did I tell you mode. Seen it all before.

You get my drift.  The moronic commenting team lead by those Doughty Stalwarts John Lloyd and Andrew Castle leave no stone unturned in their use of every single cliche in the book (and I have just used one...) On and on they drone, non stop, thought the match in between each game, each stroke giving us the benefit of their piercing insights.  I do wonder what Castle and Lloyd do in between each Championship as the other majors, thankfully, do not make use of their services. (I did see Andrew Castle do an ad for life insurance or something on TV, awful and of course he was on Strictly Come Dancing a few years back. He was awful) John Lloyd lives in Florida I gather and I have no idea of what he does in the non tennis season.

Thankfully the BBC are starting to make use of Annabel Croft who is an excellent commentator and knows her stuff. She is on SKY a lot with Greg Rusedski who is also good but we cannot have him at Wimbledon as he is not really British you know.  Also he is a bit acerbic and tends to say what he thinks and that is McEnroe territory.

But apart from all the above there have been some great matches, exciting tennis and the sun has stayed out and the rain stayed away. We have the usual Women Shriekers who really are unbearable and makes watching their tennis pretty unpleasant and, in the interest of equality, I have to say that some of the men are pretty noisy too. The guy from Portugal who played Dan Evans last night (WHO IS BACK FROM A DRUGS BAN) was making a ghastly noise which was enhanced when the roof was closed.

I have managed quite easily to avoid watching St Roger of Federer who is greeted with a sycophantic lavishness by the entire team at the BBC which really turns the stomach. When his feet tread the Sacred Turf of the Centre Court they go into full gush mode, so much so that if the Pope had turned up to canonise him on the the spot it would not have surprised me....

And unless some of the NextGen as they are so wittily called step up to the plate (CLICHE ALERT) then we are doomed to an endless ever decreasing circle of finals with Rog, Raf and Djokovic.  So come on Tsitsipas, Zverev, Shapavalov, Auger Allisime, Thiem get your game going and start challenging these guys.

And finally, most people would say that if there was a prize for the biggest Dickhead in tennis then it would be a shoe-in for Nick Kyrgios.  Yeh, well watch this space. Medvedev is challenging for it. Petulant, stupid and down right rude to the umpire it is a mystery to me why these two are not slung off the court.

And the Prize for I cannot be Bothered is, naturally, given to Bernard Tomic (known as Tomic the Tank Engine) for an appalling display against Tsonga for which he has to forfeit his first round prize money of £45,000. He did not care. He has millions in the bank and says so.

So that is that. First week over. Gosh I forgot. WHY do we have Sue Barker on the Centre Court on the Saturday introducing all the sports stars in the Royal Box? WHY?  I see enough of that miserable git James Anderson throughout the year and I certainly have no desire to see Alastair Cook’s gormless face again either.

One year they had US movie star Bradley Cooper there. Now that is more like it.....

Felixstowe Book Festival

I have had a very busy week or two so apologies for the lack of posts. I am writing this in an attempt to bring a little bit of sanity to what I am watching on the tv. Kyrgios v Nadal.  If this manages to finish without an almighty row I shall be surprised.

Still, that is for another day.

The Felixstowe Book Festival has been going for several years now and gets better every year. I remember the first one which was such a stonking success and it has all grown from there. Now a highly organised event with a slick and efficient operation and this is due to the Director, Meg Reid and a fantastic bunch of volunteers who man the bookstall, steward, help with tickets, looking after authors etc. All simply wonderful.

I was introducing three events and attended three and had a busy time in between taking photos and Tweeting and Facebooking throughout the weekend which was great fun.  

the Festival opened with James Runcie, author of the Grantchester novels, and hw was brilliant. Witty and amusing and also spoke with great feeling about faith and love. An terrific opening.

The highlight for me were meeting Jane Thynne, author of the Clara Vine books which I love. We have been FB friends for a long time and it was delightful to meet her and have a chat. Her talk on the background to her books in pre-war Berlin was excellent.

(Left to right: the Bookshop run by Stillwater Books, Liz Trenow signing her books,Jane Thynne in her Clara Vine talk, second row: Duncan Barratt, Elizabeth Simchin, James Runcie and at the bottom Jane with Simon Heffer)

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She also chaired a talk with Simon Heffer about his book The Age of Decadence covering the late Victorian and Edwardian era. He had words to say about Queen VIctoria with which I strongly disagreed and did say so.

I introduced Duncan Barratt who has written a wonderful book about the Channel Island occupation which I have mentioned before. A sell out chat with a queue waiting for returns. None were forthcoming sadly.

Liz Trenow was a welcome return speaker and I would have loved to have gone to her talk but she clashed with Jane Thynne. I have known Liz for years and had a chat with her and she quite understood thank goodness.

Then later Elizabeth Semchin on a talk about Felixstowe Ferry which I, in my ignorance, thought was a boat. Turns out it is a place and one I have visited so I felt a bit of a dope when I looked it up. Fortunately, I did so before my intro!  Packed event as well.

And then in the afternoon Alison Weir came along to chat about her latest book on the wives of Henry VIII and we are up to Anne of Cleves who I have always found the most interesting of those he married. And unique in that she survived.

Sun shone all weekend, loads of attendees and I had lots of discussions and chats with attendees. It was simply great and I am already looking forward to next year.

So watch this space....

Random at the Tennis

I have been absent for a few days as I have been up in London visiting family but mainly to attend the tennis at Queens.  Felicity, AKA the Other Grandma, and I are tennis fans of a high order and about five years ago she bought me a ticket to go to Queens as a birthday present. One of the best presents I have had. Since then we have made it a regular visit and attend on the Thursday of the week. We have always been lucky with the weather but this year I really thought we were unlikely to retain this run of good fortune as it bucketed down for two days and there was a total washout.

However, Thursday morning the sun was shining and off we went.  Play started at 11 am to catch up on the back log so we made sure we were there bright and early.  Throughout the day the temperature soared and dropped and, at one stage, we were huddle up in coats and scarves shaking with the cold. An hour later the clouds moved, out came the sun and we were baking hot. It was at this precise moment as I finally got my sunglasses from my bag that one of the lenses fell out and I had to spend the rest of the day squinting. Law of Sod.

No matter. We saw the finish of a game when Tsitsipas polished off the Brit No 1 in fifteen minutes; then he came out and played a three setter and scraped through; then we had Mahud v Cilic the defending champion and beat him to everyone’s surprise then another three setter with Chardy. By this time everyone was getting restive because what we all wanted to see was ANDY MURRAY who was testing his metal hip by playing doubles with the Utterly Gorgeous Feliciano Lopez.  We had benefited from the wash out as this match was due to be played earlier in the week.

All I can say about his reception is that if the tennis club had a roof it would have been raised. Yelling, cheering, stamping of feet and the Scottish lady sitting next to me was quite overcome.

Andy had said in an interview prior to the match that he expected to be the worst player on the court and he was expecting nothing. He and Feliciano were playing the Colombian pair, ranked No. 1 in the world so we were just hoping they would put up a respectable show.  In truth, when play started it was clear that Andy was tentative, his timing was off and he was clearly nervous. Feliciano, ever the gentleman and good friend, took most of the play and nurtured and took care of Andy and gradually you could see the touch and the confidence come back. When he let rip one of his cross court forehand winners the crowd went potty. And in the cause of Full Disclosure I tell you that I jumped up and down, I fist pumped, I shrieked and I yelled and made a right exhibition of myself. But nobody minded as they were all doing the same.

And they won and nobody could believe it and the other pair were totally hacked off as they had been up against the entire audience not just the players on the other side of the net.

The rest of the week was really something. Feliciano, runner up twice and winner once, made it to the final of the singles and he and Andy in the final of the doubles. He won the singles and the doubles and I am sure he would not mind that the papers were full of Andy the next day, though the general consensus was that Feliciano was a Good Guy.   His form this year had been poor and he was not able to qualify for Wimbledon. Now they have given him a wild card and he is going to get such a reception when he walks onto court there.

So a great time but, once again, the attendees amaze me. There are a hard core of tennis fans who go there for the game but there are a huge amount of people who come tarted up to the nines in the latest designer stuff and swan in and out clutching a glass of Champers or Pimms. They never watch more than a game or two.  Felicity and I, apart from the odd loo and tea break, sat and watched nine hours of tennis and loved every minute.

One couple behind us, he such a Hooray Henry with a Panama hat and she in floating skinny dress totally unsuited to the elements drifted in an out all afternoon and the amount of alcohol they consumed would have floored me. They were possessed of these loud braying voices that only the Brits have and in the afternoon vanished and did not appear for four hours. By this time, we thought they had left and spotting a bag and a jacket on the floor, called a steward and told him this had been left behind. He got onto his walkie talkie and five minutes later a burly man in a high vis jacket appeared with a sniffer dog!! At first we all thought this was overkill but then I realised I was sitting in front of this bag so greeted him with joy. Dog had a sniff all ok and the stuff was carted off to Lost Property.

An hour letter the couple swayed in and the following conversation ensued:

She: OOh my god where is my bag and jacket

Me: they were reported as we thought you had gone home and left them behind

He: (clutching a glass of champers) Oh but we were only having a drink

Me: that was four hours ago and we all thought you had left. the sniffer dog was called out

Her: OMG why?

Me: it was being treated as a suspicious object

He (swaying) well honestly really I mean..bit over the top what? (At this point the image of Wooster floated through my mind. I wonder why)

Me: well as the bag was behind my seat I was quite glad to have it cleared up

He: well ok but what a pain. Where has it gorn (and yes he did say gorn)

Me: they said the coat and bag would be taken to lost property

He: well where on earth is that?

Me: (getting tired of it all) I have not the faintest idea

She (sarkily): well you seem to know everything..

Me:(going into full Lady Bracknell mode) I probably do but in this instance I have no idea where Lost Property is but if you ask a steward they will tell you. In the meantime I would like to watch the tennis so could you please move (what I really wanted to say was piss off you stupid woman and let me watch the f*****g game but I refrained)

And off they went.

A glorious day though and to see Andy back and moving easily and playing tennis and laughing and looking happy was a joy. He is going to play doubles at Wimbledon and it will be SO good to have him back.  He would like to play mixed doubles but he has said he has been turned down by a few female players!  Billie Jean King immediately tweeted him and said she would do it....

A great few days and I also attended a lovely concert which I will save for another post.

Revisiting my reading youth

In my last post I mentioned a falling down bookshop which I will be most reluctant to visit again as I was petrified everything was going to fall on top of me. I found a shelf in a corner labelled “historical romance” and had a look.  Packed with the Angelique series by Serge Golon which I read when a teenager but had to abandon as they got so bad, some Plaidy and then several books by Dorothy Eden which I fell upon with cries of joy.  I used to read every single one of her titles as they came out and adored them.

One of those I bought, The Millionaire’s Daughter, I had not read so settled down one afternoon when I came back and I loved it.  Self made millionaire in New York comes to England with his wife and daughter determined to find her a husband in the aristocracy (shades of Burnett’s Shuttle here) and yes, she does find her husband but not the one her father approves of.  Totally absorbing and written with great style.

Speak to me of Love I remembered well. Impoverished upper class family in New York arrange a marriage between their fairly lazy son and daughter of the owner of Bonningtons (think Maceys, think Blooomingdales) in order to restore the family fortunes. She loves him, he does not love her.  Smashing story and, once again, absorbing and written with great style.

Since reading these I have tracked some more of Dorothy Eden’s titles and they are on their way.

Sheila Walsh. Loads of her books now available on Kindle. Such a joy to find that these books are available now as ebooks so they can be rediscovered and enjoyed.

All I will say about this one, however, is that the author had clearly read Frederica by Georgette Heyer as the characters, particularly the young boy interested in aeronautics, are practically identical and this made me very cross indeed. Heyer was plagued by plagiarists all her life and this is clearly one of them.  I have spotted another as well but will keep stumm on that one as she is still writing...

Constance Heaven - she wrote several novels set in Russia and featuring the House of Kuragin and they were full of dashing blades and love in St Petersburg. Read them all in my teens and loved them and now enjoyed all over again. 

And a D E Stevenson title I had not read. So please that many of her books are now being reprinted.

Fond memories of my youth came back while reading these which I devoured in two days on my return from Norfolk. These are the pleasures of rummaging around in second hand bookshops - you just never know what you are going to find.

 

Random in Norfolk - finding the bookshops

Wherever I go I like to track down a bookshop. Not a Waterstone or a Smith but a secondhand bookshop. Much though I love new books wandering into a shop where they have the latest paperbacks and three for two offers is pretty boring. Why? Because you know what you are going to get and there are no surprises. With tatty, crowded, tiny little haunts there is always the chance you will find a treasure, not in monetary terms (the bookseller will already have spotted those), but a treasure that you have even seeking for some time.

Years ago before Persephone started to publish Dorothy Whipple and thank goodness they have done the lot, I was in a junk shop in Penzance. And boy was it junk! I honed in on a smalll bookcase in the corner crammed with books that were really falling apart. And in the corner I found a book called The Priory by an author I had never heard of, Dorothy Whipple, opened it up, read the first page and bought it - for the princely sum of 5p. Though I now have the Persephone edition on my shelves it is cheek by jowl with that 5p edition.

So before going to Norfolk for a week I did my research.  I visited two National Trust properties, Blickling and Felbrigg. Both wonderful places to visit and I have featured them here on Random. As well as the usual NT gift shop and tea rooms many of their properties now boast a book shop. Some better than others. When I visited Greenway earlier this year I checked their shop out. Not madly impressed. The usual paperback stuff you can find in any charity shop the length and breadth of the UK (Shades of Grey anyone?).  Felbrigg was the same. 

Blickling had a more interesting collection, and more room, which makes a difference.  Loads of wall to wall fantasy, crime, chick lit which did not interest me, but the music and biography section was excellent, also the history.  I came away with a few titles including this Elizabeth Von Arnim. I have this in a battered old Virago edition but could not resist this one

Two bookshops in Cromer were visited - Much Binding and Bookworms

Much Binding has been the one I have enjoyed visiting most this Norfolk week. Cramped and confined, heaps of books all over the place, the proprietor squeezed into a corner behind an ancient till (all second hand bookshops have such tills) and the chance of finding something interesting. I came across these.

I have read a couple of titles by Frances Beeding an author of whom I knew nothing, last year after I had read Martin Edwards wonderful Classic Crime in 100 books which is my bible.

I enjoyed them very much  but not many are in print so was delighted to spot this one - and I love the cover.

Then a Bellairs. I know this author well now having discovered him a couple of years ago and since then the British Library have reprinted some of this titles. Loads more are available for your Kindle  as well which is wonderful. I actually brought the new BL title with me so it was serendipity to find this one too.

And then a Miss Silver book which I did not know and which I have just finished and thoroughly enjoyed.

And the best thing about discoveries of this kind are the covers. Aren’t they wonderful?

We also visited a bookshop in Sheringham where, quite frankly, Health and Safety would have a field day. I have never been in such a cramped, rickety and dangerous place like this - ever. You could not see half the books for the boxes in front of the shelves. In order to check out a shelf I was interested in I had to shift a couple of these boxes which were very heavy and then split showering the books all over the floor where they landed on top of another heap which had obviously been there for some time. I came away with a pile of fantastic 1960 style paperbacks of historical writers I used to read when I was a teenager. More of them in another blog.

Half the shelves had collapsed and were on the slant with books teetering on the edge. There were steps you could use but very difficult to do so as there was not enough room on the floor to open them properly. Shelves up to the ceiling and above doors holding books which were mouldering and falling apart and had clearly been there years. The shop is in a tiny terraced house in a residential street and is totally inadequate for its use.  After fifteen minutes when I was sneezing and spluttering and suffering from claustrophobia I had to get out.  I dread to think what would happen if there was a fire.

I doubt if I will visit again. I am sure there are gems to be unearthed but unearthed is the right word.

I went to Norfolk with loads to read on my Kindle and also four physical books. I came back with eighteen though most of these, once read, will be passed on to the charity shop of the local book fair for later in the year.

I know Ratty said “there is nothing like messing about in boats”.  Substitute bookshop for boats and I think he has it about right.