Robin's Nest

Always An Animal

by Luigi Pirandello (trans by Arthur D Vieli)
1867-1936

Without doing anything a lion is a lion: 
but hapless man must brave death
to have the honor of being compared
with that animal, strong, without limit.

Nourished by the soaring thoughts of an
afflicted soul, if one reaches an apex.
A grand prize awaits. Then it is said
you truly fly like an eagle.

Write a sublime poem,
that sinks in silken rhyme
of your innermost intense feelings
and they say you'll sing like a nightingale.

What must a man do to not be likened to
an animal? can he simply do nothing?
without feeling anxious or troubled?
People would then take him for a jackass.

A great day to be Welsh and proud

Today was a very good day to be Welsh. The chariots headed to Cardiff and were destroyed by the dragons.

A Triple Crown already won and a Grand Slam on the horizon.

It takes me back to those glorious days in the 60s and 70s when if we couldn’t make it to Cardiff a group of us would gather at one of the houses and watch it on TV.

Plenty of beers and lagers to hand and the cheers reverberated down the street when those heroes – from all walks of life but brought together by their red jerseys – crossed the opposition line for yet another try.

I gave up playing when I left school but I have never lost my passion for the game.

The joy of seeing those great players, Barry John, Gareth Edward’s, JPR Williams, JJ Williams, Gerald Davies, Mervyn (Merve the Swerve) Davies, Delme Thomas and so many more, remain etched in my memory.

My greatest joy, however, remains my meeting with the player who has always sat on the rugby throne of Wales as far as I am concerned.

I went to report on the opening of a new rugby clubhouse in Rhyl in 1971 – the man who opened it was none other than Barry John.

I had met a few famous people before then and over the next 40 years I met many more but this is the meeting that stands out, even more than getting a hug from Harry Secombe in Australia.

Now that IS another story.

The Mirror crack’d from side to side

There was a time you could hold the Daily Mirror up to the world and see real life reflected in it.

Hold it up now and all you will see is the fantasy life of plastic people who, we are told, are celebrities.

To my mind a celebrity is an outstanding person in their field of expertise. Richard Burton is a celebrity (unfortunately a dead one now) and rightly deserves the label.

The parish clerk who took over a council meeting and barred the officers from taking part (yes I do know her name but I refuse to add to the love/hate surrounding her by mentioning it) is NOT in the celebrity category.

Nowadays the Mirror strives to give everyone their 15 minutes of fame (well more like 15 seconds) whether they deserve it or not.

I grew up with the Mirror, it is one of two newspapers we had delivered when I was a child.

Initially I enjoyed it for the cartoon strips – Andy Capp and The Perishers – but later went on to read the news stories and by the time I was at grammar school I was following columnists such as Cassandra and Keith Waterhouse.

It might have been the BBC that broke into its schedule on Friday 22 November, 1963, at about 7.30pm to tell the UK that President Jack Kennedy had been shot, but it was the Mirror that really gave the true horror of the story on Saturday morning:

Less than five years later, in 1968, it was the Mirror again that gave us the news of another Kennedy death when Bobby was shot.

It was punchy pages like this that made the Mirror stand out over the years and although I read other newspapers my regular was always this proper socialist presenter of news.

What has happened to it now?

Over the last 15 years I have watched, in sorrow, as I saw it sink lower and lower into the gutter and feared the day it would be indistinguishable from Murdoch’s Scum.

Today I think it has come close to hitting rock bottom.

As I did my daily trawl of the online news I found that the Mirror was headlining three “news” stories.

It began with a screamer about the Queen “slamming” anti-vaxxers. It toned it down a bit by the time it reached the next layer of headlines when it claimed Her Maj had “hit out” at those unwilling to have the vaccine.

When it finally reached the story we discovered HM had merely urged those unwilling to be vaccinated to go ahead for their own sake as well as for others.

I did in fact hear the interview in question and Maj had spoken in a warm, kindly manner showing concern for those fearing the effects of the vaccine rather than “slamming” or “hitting out” or even “urging”.

This anti-climax of a story was followed by a tale of a “terrible, friendship-breaking row” between two actresses who had known each other since childhood and even played sisters in a long-running TV series.

The couple in question were Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson probably best known from Birds of a Feather, a story of two sisters living together when their Essex “gangster” hubbies are sent down for a long stretch.

I say best known but Pauline Quirke has actually done more work on her own and my feeling is that Robson tagged along on her coat tails.

To get back to the non-story, however, and we discover that they had been involved in the friendship-busting row as Quirke was “left out” of a couple of special editions of BOAF.

Throughout the tale there was no quote to support the “row” claim, from Quirke, Robson or their co-star Lesley Joseph (said to be at the centre of the row).

The only suggestion that attempts had been made to get any quote from the participants was a final paragraph to say Quirke’s agent had not been available to comment.

If I had submitted that story it would have been spiked and I would have been carpeted by the editor.

Finally we came to the ultimate in non-stories.

Apparently Emma Watson (yes the one who played the schoolgirl witch in the Potter saga) is to retire from the silver screen aged just 30.

Really?

That is a story?

NO … IT … IS … NOT.

An Elegy On The Death Of Kenneth Patchen

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)

A poet is born
A poet dies
And all that lies between is us
and the world

And the world lies about it
making as if it had got his message
even though it is poetry
but most of the world wishing
it could just forget about him
and his awful strange prophecies

Along with all the other strange things
he said about the world
which were all too true
and which made them fear him
more than they loved him
though he spoke much of love

Along with all the alarms he sounded
which turned out to be false
if only for the moment
all of which made them fear his tongue
more than they loved him
Though he spoke much of love
and never lived by 'silence exile & cunning
and was a loud conscientious objector to
the deaths we daily give each other
though we speak much of love

And when such a one dies
even the agents of Death should take note
and shake the shit from their wings
in Air Force One
But they do not
And the shit still flies
And the poet now is disconnected
and won't call back
though he spoke much of love

And still we hear him say
'Do I not deal with angels
when her lips I touch'
And still we hear him say
'O my darling troubles heaven
with her loveliness'
And still we hear him say
'As we are so wonderfully done with each other
we can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milk white cloak
of childhood lies'

And still we hear him saying
'Therefore the constant powers do lessen
Nor is the property of the spirit scattered
on the cold hills of these events'
And still we hear him asking
'Do the dead know what time it is?'

He is gone under
He is scattered
undersea
and knows what time
but won't be back to tell it
He would be too proud to call back anyway
And too full of strange laughter
to speak to us anymore anyway

And the weight of human experience
lies upon the world
like the chains of the sea
in which he sings
And he swings in the tides of the sea
And his ashes are washed
in the ides of the sea
And 'an astonished eye looks out of the air'
to see the poet swinging there

And dusk falls down a coast somewhere

where a white horse without a rider
turns its head
to the sea

RIP - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Following up on a historical story

If you work on a weekly newspaper long enough it is likely some of the people you meet and write about will go on to be famous in the field of their choice.

While working in Rhyl many of the people I knew socially, or met as part of my work, were either already known or were in a position or family that would lead to them becoming known.

As it happens the story I referred to last time introduced me to a young man who went on to be prominent in his academic field.

If you remember I got a call out to Bodrhyddan Hall, Rhuddlan, to meet a mummy which had been found in what was believed to have been an empty sarcophagus – one of two at the hall which had been there since the 19th century.

The young man was archaeology student Peter Rowley Conwy, son of Lord Langford. He had become curious about the sarcophagus, which according to family legend had been at the hall since the early 1800s. It was thought that this item, and another sarcophagus, had begun to smell in the late 1800s and the contents were supposedly dumped in the grounds.

Peter Rowley Conwy, in 1971, with the 3,000-year-old mummy he uncovered at his family home

Peter had asked an eminent Egyptologist, John Ruffle, to examine the artefact and it was found to contain the 3,000-year-old mummified body of an Egyptian priest.

Fifty years later and young Peter is now an eminent archaeologist himself with a professorship at Durham University, having gone there as a lecturer in 1990.

There he had met John Ruffle again, even though their archaeological interests were far apart.

Professor Ruffle was still one of the most eminent Egyptologists in the country.

One of the books by eminent Egyptologist John Ruffle

Peter, meanwhile, had concentrated on the hunter-gatherers of the Neolithic period as well as the prehistoric economics of Denmark from 3700 BC to 2300 BC.

He had also examined the role of the domesticated pig in the prehistoric ages.

Geoffrey Rowley-Conway, 9th Baron Langford, who lived to the ripe old age of 105

What did surprise me, however, was to find that Peter’s father, Geoffrey Alexander Rowley-Conwy, 9th Baron Longford, had only died four years ago, 2017, at the grand old age of 105.

Oh mummy, that’s not Boris Karloff

Celebrating the New Year in the Austrian Tyrol was quite a start to 1971 and my time in the classroom was finally over, almost six years after I parted company with my arch-enemy – the demon headmaster of my old grammar school.

I still had to sit for my NCTJ Proficiency Certificate but that would, I believed then, be a doddle. After all I had my certificate for T-line at 120wpm; I had covered almost every type of story; and had let McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists be my constant companion.

Also my 21st birthday was on the horizon and it certainly looked as if it would be a lot better than my 18th.

I was also tackling better stories, even the odd front page – such as the story of two deaths in a flatlet used as a holiday let.

The fire which killed them happened on the day before the Journal was published and I managed to get to the site as the rescue bid was being attempted. I managed to speak with witnesses. Then it was straight back to the office, a quick call to the chief fire officer for the official, knock out the piece and phone it over to the editor in Oswestry.

That is the cutting edge of journalism.

There was still the bread and butter work of courts, councils and church roundups.

The jam* on the bread and butter was getting an off-diary story.

One dollop of jam for me was coming face to face with a 3,000-year-old priest.

It began with a phone call to the office from Bodrhyddan Hall (pictured) in nearby Rhuddlan. The son of Lord Langford said he had made an amazing find amongst some Egyptian curios which had been at the hall since the first half of the 19th century.

I was sent off with our photographer Glyn Robert’s and we were met at the hall by Peter Rowley Conway, Langford’s oldest son.

The 19-year-old archaeology student explained that the Egyptian collection, including two mummy cases, had been brought back to the hall around about the 1840s.

The family story was that the mummy cases had started to smell and in the late 1800s the contents had been taken out of the cases and buried in the grounds.

On telling a fellow student at Cambridge about this it was suggested to Peter he should talk to an expert about the mummy cases.

An Egyptologist from Birmingham City Museum visited the hall and when he opened the second case a bandaged mummy was revealed inside.

Peter then took us to see the find and Glyn took a picture of him holding the head up.

The expert, Mr John Ruffle, later identified the mummy as that of a priest from the temple of Amun in Thebes. He had been mummified around the end of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, approximately 1200 BC.

The mummy looked very much like the film versions I had seen starring people like Boris Karlkoff and Christopher Lee. It was bound in tatty linen bandaging which had greyed over the millennia and the skull-like face was revealed still covered in leathery skin.

Mr Ruffle had translated the name of the priest as Minen Ha.

Peter told me the mummy was to be expertly restored and his father, Lord Langford, intended to put it back on display at the hall.

Stories like this made for a lighter touch amid the more mundane, and serious, items we had to handle.

*My father, the chemist, always said that the year-round sales of cough mixtures, sticking plasters and other items stocked by a chemist put the bread and butter on our plates.

The summer sales of sun lotion, calamine lotion, sunglasses and all the other essentials for holidaymakers put the jam on the bread and butter.

The Masque of Anarchy

by Perry Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I
As I lay in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea 
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

II
I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:

III
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

IV
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermine gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

V
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

VI
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

VII
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

VIII
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

IX
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

X
With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

XI
And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

XII
And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

XIII
O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London Town.

XIV
And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

XV
For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King!'

XVI
We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold.
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'

XVII
Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed,
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God,' -

XVIII
Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'

XIX
And Anarchy, the skeleton, 
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

XX
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold inwoven robe.

XXI
So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank with Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament.

XXII
When one went past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

XXIII
'My Father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!'

XXIV
'He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh Misery!'

XXV
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

XXVI
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

XXVII
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky.

XXVIII
It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

XXIX
On its helm, seen far away 
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And the plumes its light rained through 
Like a shower of crimson dew.

XXX
With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men- so fast 
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.

XXXI
As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

XXXII
And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

XXXIII
And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

XXXIV
A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

XXXV
As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow
And shuddering with a mother's three

XXXVI
Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:

XXXVII
'Men of England, heirs of glory,
 Heroes of unwritten story,
Nursling of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

XXXVIII
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many they are few.

XXXIX
'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

XL
'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell.

XLI
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

XLII
'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,-
They are dying whilst I speak.

XLIII
'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

XLIV
'Tis to to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannical of old.

XLV
'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

XLVI
'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of thee.

XLVII
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.

XLVIII
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.

XLXIX
'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their winged quest;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storms and snow are in the air

L
'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one;
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

LI
'This is Slavery - savage men,
Or wild beasts within den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.

LII
'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:

LIII
'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

LIV
'For the labourers thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

LV
'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

LVI
'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim,thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

LVII
'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

LVIII
'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

LIX
'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagues to quench thy flame in Gaul.

LX
'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

LXI
'Thou art Love, the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

LXII
'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy beloved sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

LXIII
'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

LXIV
Spirit, patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness

LXV
'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plans stretch around.

LXVI
'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

LXVII
From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own,

LXVIII
'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold-

LXIX
'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which shows the human heart with tares-

LXX
'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

LXXI
'Those prison walls of wealth and fashion,
Where some feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil and wail
As must make their brethren pale-

LXXII
'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold

LXXIII
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free-

LXXIV
'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

LXXV
'Let the tyrants pour around 
With a quick and startling sound, 
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

LXXVI
'Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

LXXVII
'Let the fixed bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen alone for food.

LXXVIII
'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

LXXIX
'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

LXXX
'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

LXXXI
'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute.

LXXXII
'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!

LXXXIII
'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

LXXXIV
'And if then the tyrants dare 
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,-
What they like, that let them do.

LXXXV 
'With folded arms and steady eyes
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

LXXXVI
'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

LXXXVII
'Every woman in the land
Will  point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

LXXXVIII
'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

LXXXIX
'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam unlike inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

XC
'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

XCI
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

Never mind the windmills – look for the memories

Noel Harrison once sang about “The Windmills of your Mind” – a place where you turn and keep turning like the sails of a windmill, chasing yourself in circles.

In a way our minds really are like this, labyrinthine corridors with doors wherever you turn – each requiring a special key before you can open it and savour the memories within.

The key could be a word; a few notes of melody; an aroma; a picture.

For me, this week, the key was a final late Christmas present from my darling wife, Marion.

I have previously referred to the elegant globe which she had ordered at least four weeks before Christmas and it arrived at least four weeks after.

This final gift was ordered at the same time from the British Library and arrived a full week in to February.

The present was much appreciated – it was a set of postcards depicting 16 original covers of books that are well known (well in my case 11 that were well known and one I had never heard of before).

Only two of them were on a list of books I have never read, at least not in full.

Other than the unknown title the set included a card depicting the original cover of “Pride and Prejudice“.

Its opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged . . . ” has gone down as the most famous line in any book – more well known than even the first line of Genesis.

I have tried, oh reader how I have tried, to read the book that so many people have swooned over in the last 200 years but I can never get past the first few pages without wanting to throttle the female Bennetts.

The other books in the set, ranging from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to “Frankenstein” and from “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” to “Robinson Crusoe“, led to doors I have entered and exited many times over the years.

As I have said before I am a voracious reader and have read anything I could lay my hands on over the years.

As a child we had a good selection of books at home.

There was a bookcase in the hall (it lives by my side of the bed these days) with three shelves stocked with books from “Coral Island” by R M Ballantyne to “The Three Musketeers” and “Twenty Years After” by Alexandre Dumas père.

In the living room was a large set of shelves, with games, an atlas and other large items on the lower section and a further set of shallower shelves above housing such delights as the Readers Digest Condensed books and book club volumes which included “Reach for the Sky” by Paul Brickhill (the story of legless flying ace Douglas Bader) and “The Moon and Sixpence” by W Somerset Maugham.

Added to this the municipal library was just at the top of our road with its plethora of books.

There were times, however, when I had run out of suitable books, or at least ones I had access to and just needed something to read.

Now we come back to that set of BL cards. One of them triggered that keycode for one of those long-forgotten rooms in the corridors of my mind.

As the door creaked open I saw once more “Little Women” and “Good Wives” by Louisa May Alcott.

It is at least 60 years since I last “borrowed” this book from my sister’s room where it rested alongside “Little Men” and “Jo’s Boys” yet as soon as I saw the card showing the book cover the memories poured forth.

Marion had read the books during her childhood and soon our recall of the stories and the characters just kept on coming.

Looking back at them with the value of hindsight it is amazing how many modern attitudes were highlighted in these books written when the American Civil War was still raging.

Feminism was way to the front in the character of Jo March but family loyalty to her sisters was also apparent.

The thought processes brought the other books in the trilogy to mind and I saw shy young Nat with his violin and the likeable rascal Dan with his loyalty to his musically gifted friends.

There was sadness as well as adventure in these books, young Amy’s death was particularly poignant, but overall it was a case of triumph over the odds.

I doubt if I will ever reread these books, once was enough apparently for their storylines and morals to stick in my mind, but it shows that any book well written can prove to be of interest.

Before I say farewell to the books I “borrowed” from my sister when I lacked other material I must admit that the Alcott memory tripped another switch in my childhood library.

There, below the Louisa May Alcott books were my sister’s other favourite source of adventure – “Cherry Ames – Student Nurse” with the character going on to be a “Senior Nurse“, an “Army Nurse” and in fact any type of nursing post you could imagine from “Rural Nurse” to “Flight Nurse” to “Island Nurse” and even – “Jungle Nurse“.

I won’t bother you with the plots of the 20+ books in the series – they didn’t really vary much – and all I can say in my defence is that sometimes I got really desperate for something to read.

But wait: “What was the book you did not know?” I hear you ask. Here you are:

Alone

by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Once

Michael Rosen, born 1946 – and still going strong

Once there was a boy who
wanted to be beautiful
and a girl who
wanted to be strong.
The boy was worried
that he wasn't beautiful enough.
The girl was worried
that she wasn't strong enough.

One day they went out to seek
their fortunes.

But there was nothing.

There was nowhere for them to go
Nothing for them to see
No one for them to meet.
There was no story for them to be in.
They couldn't even meet each other.
You may have thought they had already met
but they hadn't
because there wasn't anywhere
for them to meet.

Until you came along
and decided that you can do
something about it.