Judith Johnson
  • Blog
  • About me
  • Poetry
  • Travels
  • Projects
  • SWM Extra
  • Miscellanea
  • Pen Portraits
  • Contact/To Buy

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #10 : GerryWolstenholme

30/11/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture

​When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines.
 

Thanks to Gerry Wolstenholme for No 10 in the series. Blackpool-born, he  attended Baines Grammar School before moving to London. He was a career civil servant, and also ran a successful secondhand and antiquarian bookselling business for many years, with a speciality in 19th century English literature.
 
He has written a number of books, as well as contributing to a wide variety of magazines and also producing his own such as ‘The Cheltenham Spectator and Festival News’. In addition he commentated on cricket and football for various radio stations (in his younger days he was also an extremely keen amateur sportsman, playing football, cricket, squash, badminton and tennis.)  He writes: 

Picture
​The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
 
I had read Dumas’ The Three Musketeers in an abridged edition as a youngster and enjoyed the swashbuckling and storytelling so much I wanted to read more of his works. For an early birthday of mine (perhaps my 9th), my Mum said that I could choose a book as an extra present. So I took her down to our local bookshop, Sweetens, and chose The Count of Monte Cristo. My Mum was slightly taken aback because many of the books I bought were two shillings and sixpence from Woolworths but this one was 12 shillings and sixpence; it was in the Collins Classics series in a blue pseudo leather binding and I can still vividly remember walking into the bookshop because it had a sloping floor going upwards towards where the classics were shelved. But true to her word my Mum bought it for me and the exciting and nail-biting storyline has stuck with me ever since. I loved Edmond Dantès who, about to marry his fiancée Mercédès, was falsely accused of treason and was imprisoned in the Château d'If, an island fortress off the coast of Marseille. It was a forbidding place and I grieved with Edmond at his wrongful arrest and subsequence imprisonment. 

Picture
The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
 
Perhaps unusually, The Thirty Nine Steps was a set book in my second year at Baines Grammar School. I wasn’t used to such a book being on the syllabus and it was a delight, for it was unlike, say, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey that we had previously read. From the very moment when Richard Hannay encounters Scudder, to his daring escape from his London flat, through his wanderings in the Scottish border country, which Buchan knew so well, to the exciting ending, the book was spell binding. It was so much so that when it came to that year’s English Literature examinations, I was so enthralled with the book that in answer to the question on it I very nearly rewrote it – in synopsis of course. Satisfied with my effort I put my pen down close to the end of the specified time of the examination only to notice the instructions on the examination paper, ‘Answer three questions’! I had to very hastily attempt to get some thoughts down on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustum. You can imagine the shortness of the hurried answers to those two! And Buchan’s novel also has another happy memory for me. When I was dating my future wife, Linda, we sat in the sun one afternoon and I read ​her the complete Thirty Nine Steps. How’s that for romancing a young lady?! I should just add an amusing story about this title. At a cricket match a couple of years ago a good friend of mine had been to London and he remarked that he had been to theatre. In answer to a question as to what he had seen, he replied, ‘A comedy’. I asked what it was and he replied, to my utter astonishment, ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’. I am afraid I laughed out loud and asked him what he thought he had been watching because that title was, arguably one of the first and finest of spy novels. I must admit I went out and bought him a copy that I presented to him with the words, ‘Please have a read of that and have a laugh!’

Picture
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
 
I have managed to find an illustration to accompany this choice of the edition that I purchased many, many years ago when I first encountered the book. Woolworths had a book section and their books were in a generic series that sold for less than the recognised publisher’s editions. This one, if I remember rightly, was in the Regency Classics series and it cost two shillings and sixpence, a price I could run to when saving my spending money. The attraction at the time was the pirate, on the front cover plus the frontispiece of the book that was a map of the island where treasure was hidden. It was a swashbuckling tale from the beginning when Jim Hawkins and his mother have Billy Bones as a mysterious visitor to their inn The Admiral Benbow. The book was such a favourite that I now have a variety of editions, retellings and sequels and I have read the original a number of times and it still gives me the thrill that it did all those years ago. I should add that it also made me fall in love with RLS and my first published writing many years ago was an appreciation of the great man, who underwent such hardship to produce his works.

Picture
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens
 
I was aware of the name Charles Dickens from a young age because my Mum and Dad had some shelves of books and amongst my Mum’s Forever Amber and Gone with the Wind (which I read at the time) and my Dad’s novels by Peter Cheyney and James Hadley Chase plus his speeches of Churchill and I Sank the Royal Oak by Günther Prien was Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. I used to take it from the shelf just to look at the quirky illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne (using the ​name Phiz), so when I began my secondhand and antiquarian bookselling career I used to buy Dickens books all the time. And when I first had a copy of Pickwick in stock I decided to begin reading it. I started one Saturday morning and was quickly transported to the world of Pickwick and his followers but early in the book I discovered that there was a page missing. I was living in Chiswick at the time so I immediately walked down to WH Smith on Chiswick High Road, found a new copy on the shelves, surreptitiously read the missing paragraphs, returned home and carried on reading! Pickwick was not the initial success that it became when it was first published in monthly parts but once Sam Weller appeared in the story, it took off enormously. And that was not surprising for after Pickwick, Sam is, arguably, the most memorable character. I know the four members of the club who travelled around England are Messrs Tracy Tupman, Nathaniel Snodgrass and Augustus Winkle but Alfred Jingle also presents a fascinating portrait while the misunderstanding between Pickwick and Mrs Bardell results in one of the most famous fictional court cases of all time; both of them were incarcerated in the Fleet Prison (as was Dickens’ father in real life) for debt. There is also the memorable cricket match, Dingley Dell versus All-Muggleton to read about, all of which made it a book that has remained with me for all time. Indeed I studied the writing of Pickwick in some detail and have since amassed a large collection of Dickensiana and have even written various pieces on Dickens myself.

Picture
The Tower of London by William Harrison Ainsworth
 
I should pay tribute to my late wife Linda for introducing me to William Harrison Ainsworth for, despite him being from my native Lancashire, I did not know the name when I was a young bookseller. Fortunately on one of my buying trips to Charing Cross Road, and with Linda, my then girlfriend, accompanying me, we were looking at Jackson’s stock and he always had a rack of books outside at two shillings and sixpence. Linda spotted this book entitled The Tower of London and being a Londoner she took a fancy to it so we bought it in the leather bound version of the Everyman’s Library. I took little notice, other than pay for it with my other purchases, but after Linda had read it she suggested that I would enjoy it as an historical read. I took her advice, did so and thoroughly enjoyed it so much that I investigated who this Harrison Ainsworth was and that was when I discovered he was a Manchester man. This started me on a quest for his works, some of which, Old St Paul’s, Guy Fawkes, and Jack Shepherd, for instance, were relatively easy to find, particularly when we were living in London with all the outlets to go searching in. But others were difficult to come by so I made it a point to begin looking for them, even writing the titles of missing volumes in a ‘books wanted’ notebook that I still have, but don’t use, today. Anyway back to The Tower of London, which covers Lady Jane Grey’s short-lived reign through to her execution. Ainsworth wrote it while also writing Guy Fawkes for serial publication and at the same time planning the setting up his own magazine, Ainsworth’s Magazine. I was not particularly an historian when I was at school but the reading of this book started me on the trail of British history that continues to this day. I should add that, having sold Ainsworth collections in the  past, I now have a small collection of his works, including some more uncommon titles, and have also written a couple of articles on him.

0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #9 - Gareth Writer-Davies

8/2/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
​


​When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines.
 
Thanks to Gareth Writer-Davies*, a poet from Brecon, Wales, for No 9 in the series.

​He writes:

Picture

​John Betjeman's Collected Poems

​We were not a bookish household, and especially not poetry, but my father got me this book after he read an article about Betjeman in the newspaper. His style didn’t do a lot for me though like Larkin I came to appreciate it, but his subject matter was all around me, from tennis clubs to the keeping of social face to the Underground trains that jolted along the tracks through leafy suburbia and were the reason we and our neighbours were here. He’s very good on death and lust (he never really came to terms with either) but can be trite in other poems; a “Collected” can be exposing, I don’t know why poets agree to them, a “Selected” is so much safer!

Picture
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The novels that have stuck with me come from my teenage years; I guess longevity in the mind is as good a test of worth as any. This is such and comes with the advantage of being one of Dickens’ shorter novels (it took me fifteen years to finish Martin Chuzzlewit ...). For me, Pip remains the unquestioning eternal child, really quite out of his depth and at the disposal of others even when good fortune comes his way. Miss Haversham is a wonderful creation and the story arc of the convict has conviction. The marshes, the graveyard, the crumbling wedding cake, have all stayed with me; no wonder it is a popular adaptation for film, television and the stage. I would recommend the novel Jack Maggs by the Australian author Peter Carey; a wonderful re-reading of the Magwitch character.  


Picture
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

This was my introduction to Hardy and his grinding wheel of fate; goodness me, that wheel was in every book and never tired of turning…..I bought The Hand of Ethelberta, his only comedy, and even in that fate was the implacable foe never to be defeated. However, I read this at an impressionable age, and in a relatively short novel (this seems to be a recurring theme based on my concentration span) I was knocked out by the story of remorse and redemption and ill founded pride and Henchard’s wish to be obliterated and forgotten. That summer I took a bicycle trip around “Wessex” staying in many of the places he renamed as locations including Dorchester and Corfe Castle, and this cemented the story in my head for ever. There was a TV adaptation at the time starring Alan Bates as the eponymous character, and so convinced was I by his performance that it was a surprise to me a couple of years later to overhear him talking to his agent in a restaurant and find that he was quite the effete thespian and not a gruff son of the Dorset soil! That was my introduction to the art of disguise and bloody actors….  

Picture
The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I was in a bookshop where I grew up and idly fluffing through the shelves when I stopped at this book. I started reading the back cover when the local rabbi spoke from behind me: “Read it, you’ll never forget it”. So I bought it, read it and have never forgotten it. Led me onto many other Steinbeck books and was probably my first taste of an American author, but none of his books  topped this for ambition and story telling and a voice of righteous indignation; nowadays, he would probably be considered very left wing in the USA. He won the Nobel Prize, though I’m not sure he deserved it and you could equally argue that, say The Great Gatsby, was the great American novel. But The Grapes of Wrath has had a huge effect throughout the world (certainly the post war years) on social policy and government action and on the minds of readers. “Once read, never forgotten” is a pretty good blurb to put on a book!      


Picture


Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop is a touchstone for me. Whenever I am struggling to make sense of the flow of a line, when I have screwed up a verse with a loud clunk, I open this collection and my way forward becomes clear. She wasn’t one for confessing, indeed went out of her way to hide herself, so many of the poems are seemingly observational (The Moose and The Waiting Room) whilst staying in the first person. One Art is probably the most famous poem here, a tight villanelle, and there are many other joys. but it’s her invisible techniques that keep bringing me back when I’ve had enough of Hughes and Larkin.
​

*Gareth Writer- Davies

Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2014 and 2017)

Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition (2015) and Prole Laureate for 2017
Co
mmended in the Welsh Poetry Competition (2015) and Highly Commended in 2017
Hawthornden Fellow (2019).
 
Publications: 
"Bodies" (2015)  "Cry Baby" (2017) via Indigo Dreams

https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gareth-writer-davies/4587920255
https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gwdcrybaby/4594091370
 
"The Lover's Pinch" (2018) The End (2019)  Via Arenig Press
 
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-lovers-pinch/
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-end-gareth-writer-davies/
​
0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #8 - Gail Sequeira

14/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Gail Sequeira for No 8 in the series. She writes:

I was born in Bombay and grew up primarily in Bombay and Delhi. Both cities have had a profound impact on my life, my reading and my cooking. My first menu for the Comfort Kitchen, the small scale cantina which I opened recently with my husband Kevin in Brecon, Wales,  was inspired by both cities: kababs and rajma from Delhi, and to finish off,  a delicate sweet coconut dessert inspired by tender coconut ice cream made famous by Natural's of Bombay.


Picture

​

​The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This book is no easy read in a sense, even though it flows like water running downhill. The subject matter is very personal for me, being an Indian woman, and it ripped my carefully sheltered life apart at the seams. This is the moment in my own history I began to question the status quo.


Picture



​The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
 
This one is a beautiful tapestry of intertwining lives. It’s hard to describe, the main characters are so very diverse! There’s an illegal immigrant in America, the remainder of old colonials in the Himalayas. A fascinating and heart wrenching read.

Picture



Five Point Someone by Chetan Bharat
 
This is a coming of age story set in one of the most prestigious campuses in India. It’s nostalgic and sweet and it captures Indian childhood and young adulthood in a way that hasn’t been done before.

Picture




Bombay Rains Bombay Girls by Anirban Bose
 
There is no city in the world like Bombay! This one tells the story of a small town boy who moved to Bombay for medical school. It’s like opening a window into an aspect of Bombay life the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience and a very nostalgic read for someone who grew up there.

Picture



Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan
 
This is the first of three books about the five Thakur sisters, growing up in a lovely old neighbourhood in Delhi. The word ’pricey’ is slang for high maintenance. And besides a strong storyline, this book speaks in the language of the people and of the times. It captures the change in Indian society as the economy opened up. It’s just a beautiful read.

0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #7 - Owen Williams

8/6/2020

0 Comments

 
PicturePhoto by Hilary Williams
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Owen Williams for No 7 in the series:  

Owen grew up as an only child in Talbot Green (Llantrisant ) where his father worked as an  electrician. The family background was in farming in the Vale of Glamorgan. He studied Creative Design at Loughborough University, specialising in Furniture Design, and after a  post graduate diploma in Technology (now an MA/MSc) at Swansea Met, he taught Design and Technology. He also worked professionally in theatre lighting, and for many years has also provided both lighting, and a huge variety of props, to local amateur theatre and dance companies in and around Brecon.

Owen's interests also include motorcycling, amateur radio (he holds an advanced licence) and poetry, and he has recently been included in Onward/Ymlaen, an anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Wales. 


Picture




​The Boy Electrician by Armac


This is the first book I ever bought and about the only book I read for pleasure when at secondary school (having dyslexia didn't help).

Picture

​​


Dylan Thomas: ​The Poems

This is the first book I bought when I arrived in Brecon. I fell in love with Thomas's writing after helping my dad stage-light a production of Under Milk Wood for a community project in the village of Gilfach Goch.

Picture


​Reminiscences of Motorcycling
by 'Ixion'


I bought my first motorcycle at the age of sixteen and have loved them ever since. I studied engineering history for A level so was naturally interested in the history of motorcycle development. This book is about riding very early machines around the turn of the last century. Ixion (Canon Basil H Davies) was a motorcycling vicar and author. He started riding motorcycles in 1898 and wrote for The Motor Cycle magazine from 1903 to his death in 1961. This book was originally published in 1920. Interesting stuff for a geek!

Picture
, 


T S Eliot's Four Quartets


I'm not sure how I discovered Eliot but I do love the Quartets. I do have them published all together in a book however they were published first in pamphlet form in the early 1940s. My copies are early, though not first editions. Love the deckled edge paper.

Picture



Kilvert’s Diary
​

A glimpse into a forgotten Victorian world around Hay-on-Wye.

​Great fun to visit the locations of his entries. A world without cars, so lots of walking.


0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #6 - J E L Lehnsherr

3/6/2020

0 Comments

 
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is No 6, with thanks to Jack Endeavour Leto Lehnsherr, who writes:
​
Picture



​​I'm a 22 year old aspiring author, published poet, bokar and future mad scientist, on the spectrum of neurodiversity. As the child of a Scot and a Hungarian immigrant in Germany, I spent most of my life moving around .Just like my ancestors, a restless traveller with an endless hunger for knowledge and stories. Libraries, especially the one in Brecon, have ever since I was a child been the only place to rest and to call home. Just another kid in love with Keats, Housman and Morse.

Picture
Picture
The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie 

If it weren't for a story on AO3 called Heart's at Peace (Grantchester TV), I would never have known of this book, let aside have contributed four more stories on said page.

Robert Kendall, no offence to Morse, had captured my heart with his wit within a tick.

The book isn't about him though.

​It's about young Sidney Chambers'  journey to become the brilliant, cheeky vicar and part time detective he's known and loved for in the Grantchester mysteries. They are alright too, just not as marvellous as Road to Grantchester.


Picture
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
(The Inspector Morse mysteries #13)

It's one of those slow Thursday afternoons in 2019; it's raining cats and dogs as I wait for my friend Alex in the shadow of the library. She has just returned from London with this treasure in her bag. Judging from the preserves poppy and bus ticket it must have been May.

It is the last case for my beloved Inspector Morse, the last hurrah in a long life as a terrific detective. Why choose this book knowing the ending from afar? Cause it's so light... Like Lewis' kiss in Chapter 77. It is not one of your average quick solved murder cases, in fact a rather haunting tale, filled with lots of obstacles, that lingers on.

My favourite chapter (73) begins with a quote from Keats. The last time we get to experience everything we love about Morse before his light fades.Morse resonates to me on a deeper level. Two souls alike divided by ink and paper. In the aftermath of finishing this book I wrote a requiem poem on the steps of the Bodleian library. "A remorseful day" appeared  about two months after that rainy Thursday afternoon in the Brecon Beacons.


Picture
Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian
(The Aubrey-Maturin saga #2) 

Nothing beats a good cup of tea and an Age of Sail story on a rainy afternoon. The Aubrey Maturin books have just the right amount of wit, action, in combination of history. 

Lucky Jack Aubrey , my name patron, isn't yet the Captain of his beloved HMS Surprise but just a mere Commander. Alongside his companion, the faithful Irish-Catalan Doctor Stephen Maturin, Jack spends the brief period of the Peace of Amiens (1802-1803) in the countryside, hunting and courting. My favourite quote: "Anyone would think you were married to that man", captures their unique bond perfectly. Hornblower's Indefatigable makes a cameo appearance too.

Unlike the rest of the series, they spend a lot of their time on shore. Here we get to see a different Jack Aubrey. Courageous in battle, embracing every storm like it's a soft breeze, but here he is oh so awkward on shore. The follow up book HMS Surprise has its prime moments too, with a drunk sloth, so I highly recommend reading this one after.


Picture




Good Omens
by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

An angel and a demon, knowing each other for the better half of some centuries, have to save the world only to realise they are each other's world. Armageddon was trying to happen (or well, trying to be prevented) at the wrong place with the wrong anti-Christ as the result of a lot of funny misunderstandings.

When Tilly, one of those magic ethereal beings called librarians, introduced me to the wonderfulness that is Good Omens and handed me their copy, I would never have guessed that I would end up travelling one day as Aziraphale across countries to conventions.


Picture

Interview with the Vampire
by Anne Rice 

"I'm going to give you a chance I never had..."

When Lestat spoke those words for the first time, I was 10 and had sneaked into the living room past my bed time where my siblings were watching the movie. Several days later I held the copy of the book in my hands and was dragged into the world of the glorious Lestat de Lioncourt and his melancholy companion Louis.

Claudia was my favourite character back then. She had lost her mother to the plague, which was wiping out whole families in New Orleans at that time, and got turned into a vampire by Lestat as a gift for Louis.
​
The New Orleans chapter with Lestat and Louis being fathers to their own love child is still my favourite part of the novel, although Claudia isn't my favourite character anymore. Loss and years of experience changes people and I guess that's why nowadays I prefer Louis. The book isn't everyone's cup of tea. Yet whoever is into real, not sparkling, vampires might actually enjoy this piece of Eden.


0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #5 - Helen Smith

21/5/2020

1 Comment

 
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is the fifth, with thanks to Helen Smith, who writes:
Picture


​I grew up on the border between England and Wales, then went to study Zoology at Cambridge University, followed by Psychology at St Andrews. I am now a hypnotherapist and mindful movement/dance teacher, and part-time poet and crafter. I love and am greatly influenced by the natural world, myths and legends, and the complex connection between people, our bodies, and nature. Having recently started attempting to write my own novel, I have a renewed respect for those authors whose books I have read and enjoyed! I have so many favourite books it was a real challenge to get it down to just five, but here they are…

Picture
​

​Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

This is one of those books that is equally enchanting for adults as it is for children. I love how Michelle Paver has captured the essence of what it might be like to live in the forests of our hunter-gatherer past, where humans lived in more spiritual connection with the natural world. She has employed extensive and thorough research, making Torak and Wolf’s world come alive as they search for the Mountain of the World Spirit on a quest to slay the demon bear. The first in a book series I come back to time and time again.


Picture


​If Women Rose Rooted
by Sharon Blackie

​I remember when I first read this thinking that a copy should be given to every girl at school (then revising this to include boys too). It explores the connection between women and the land, and the journey to finding a sense of belonging in the modern corporate ‘wasteland’, gaining inspiration from Celtic myths as well as contemporary women who have found ways of living more rooted lives. It has been described as a Celtic ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, though in my opinion it is much better, easier to read, and more relevant to life in the UK.

Picture


The Mabinogion translation by Sioned Davies

This book is a collection of truly wonderful and magical stories from ancient Wales, which take place both in this world and the Celtic Otherworld. I have a particular love of the 4th branch, the story of Lleu and Blodeuwedd: I have studied it thoroughly, through multiple layers of meaning, and it has made a huge impression on my life. I also highly recommend Damh the Bard’s musical interpretations (find them here: www.paganmusic.co.uk).


Picture


A Brief History of Nakedness
by Philip Carr-Gomm

​This book takes the reader on a journey that spans from ancient religious sadhus all the way to contemporary pagans, advertisers and protesters, exploring and tracing humans’ sometimes bizarre, sometimes touching, and often complex, relationships with our naked bodies. I found it both entertaining and enlightening - not only informative and thought-provoking, but also a thoroughly enjoyable read.


Picture


Instrumental by James Rhodes

This is not an easy book to read, but one I bought a second copy of - to lend out to others so they could read it too. Both an autobiography and a love letter to music, the book tells of how music was a lifeline to Rhodes as he faced a childhood full of unspeakable trauma, and how, against all the odds, he pursued his passion to become a renowned concert pianist. A remarkable man. Hear him play here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ82pECqiUg.


1 Comment

Who Owns Britain?

11/5/2020

0 Comments

 
I first came across mention of Kevin Cahill's book Who Owns Britain when I was reading George Monbiot's Feral, and I made a mental note then to read it sometime. It was published by Canongate in 2001 and is now out of print. I didn't have the funds to shell out for the cheapest second-hand copy advertised on Amazon, but fortunately Kent Libraries had a copy. It duly arrived, obviously much-handled, and much annotated in the margins. When, after three weeks, I went online to extend my borrowing period, I was informed I couldn't do so as another reader was waiting for it. Luckily I'm a fast reader, so I mashed my way through the last third of the book in a few fevered reading sessions!

Fascinating that Kevin Cahill’s review of our country’s land ownership is so hard to track down; much of its subject matter was dealt with previously by The Return of Owners of Land, published in 1872, and which has been pretty comprehensively erased from public knowledge for the last century or so. In 1876 every citizen of Great Britain could go to his or her local county hall, parish office or library and find the names and addresses of the owners of 95% of the land area of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales - but in the last 125 years access to information about the ownership of land has receded rather than advanced.The land-owning records, once available in every parish, were abolished.

I'm known at Johnson Towers for ploughing my way through weighty tomes (the school librarian in one of my former workplaces once remarked that I was the only person who had checked out Iona & Peter Opie's The Language and Lore of Schoolchildren in all her years there!), and this one was very densely textual, but serious readers will, I hope, be grateful for the facts which Kevin Cahill has assembled in order to reveal some home truths about our 'sceptred isle'.

I own I have not fully digested every fact this book presents, but I was deeply impressed by its main message, which is that large amounts of the land in Britain are not properly registered. At the time of publication, more than 30% and maybe as much as half of the actual acreage of England and Wales was not recorded in the Land Registry for those two countries. This impacts on the availability and, crucially, the cost of, land for development.

This review would become an enormous essay if I were to lay out all of the book’s salient points, so here are a few nuggets to whet your appetite:

1. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, he freed up around 10 million acres of England alone to distribute to his followers - a group of about 1500 families. The incomes from the old church lands put huge wealth at the barons' disposal.

2. The industrial revolution was paralleled by the enclosures, the legal device used to include common land into landed estates, thus excluding the peasantry who had lived off the common land, and increasing the labour supply to the factories. It is a truism of conventional British history that the landowners were the dominant force in British politics right up to World War Two... what the history of landownership in Britain proves, and modern political economics demonstrates, is the inseparable bond between land and power.

3. Since the late 19th century, all formal tax on land has been abolished, and the specific taxes which have been substituted have placed the larger burden of taxes on the smallest landowners, domestic homeowners, while removing it altogether on the largest landowners. In addition, the larger landowners, (189,000 people own 88% of the land) are in receipt of subsidy to the tune of £4 billion annually. They pay no tax on that asset.

4. Those closest to and most likely to have real influence with the Queen are almost all hereditary aristocrats (the book gives details of the lands owned by these and the Royal Family) and landowners ... overwhelmingly connected to a very small group of banks ... the particular coalition which crowds the Palace, the Crown Estate and the two duchies (Lancaster and Cornwall), with its secret lobbyists and advocates, is the same group that stands to benefit the most from perpetuating the black hole at the heart of the land registry. These are people distinguished from the rest of the population by owning the vast bulk of the land on which the population at large depends for homes, and, to a lesser extent, food.

5. Since 1993, as part of the general and undisclosed settlement made between the Queen and the government in relation to tax, Prince Charles has paid normal tax rates, but his private company, The Duchy of Cornwall, pays no capital gains and no corporation tax.

6. The Duchy of Lancaster (created in 1351) is a very large landed estate, mostly based in the north of England with some land in London. The Queen, who is also Duke of Lancaster, receives the revenues from this estate tax free. It now runs to almost 47,220 land-based acres, but taken with its estuarial waters and riverbeds of 125,000 acres, it actually comprises close on 172,000 acres. To these can be added £66 million in Stock Exchange investments and £5 million in cash. The Duchy pays no tax on anything. The money it pays to the Queen, £5.7 million in the most recent account, is tax-free. If the Duchy had paid corporation tax and capital gains tax at the standard rate of 40% in 1997 that would have been at least £3 million to the Exchequer.

7. Professor Cannadine, in The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, wrote of the late 19th century: 'the contemporary cult of the country house depicts the old land-owning classes as elegant, exquisite patrons of the arts, living lives of tasteful ease in beautiful surroundings. Of course, there is some truth in this. But as a representation of the totality of patrician existence, it misleads and distorts, by failing to recognise them for what they really were: a tough, tenacious and resourceful elite, who loved money, loved power and loved the good life'.
(And the British public love Downton Abbey..... talk about the opiate of the masses! Ed.)

8. Cahill goes into much detail of one of the Plantagenet families still very much in evidence : the Howards, and comments 'It is quite an achievement to have kept £2 billion in the family for almost 400 years'. In all, 20 Plantagenet descendants appear in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Incidentally, Kevin Cahill has now written Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership. I look forward to reading it.
0 Comments

Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther

29/11/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
 I have resolved, since moving house with dozens of boxes of books, including an entire bookshelf’s worth to be read, not to buy any more second-hand books if I can help it, but to use public libraries, except for books for birthday and Christmas presents, which I’ll  purchase from independent bookshops. Libraries, in Austerity Britain, are under constant threat of closure . They are being forced to justify their existence, which includes tallying books taken out by library users. Since 2010, more than 478 libraries have closed in England, Wales and Scotland.*

There is a wonderful library in Brecon, staffed by exceptionally friendly, helpful librarians. It is currently in transit, having closed in November in order to make the move to a new site adjacent to the Brecon Museum.  Before they closed, they allowed users to take out a nice big pile of books to keep them going over the break, and one of my serendipitous finds was Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim.

I had never read this author, and assumed she was German, but actually she was a New Zealander, cousin to Katherine Mansfield, and her first marriage was to a Prussian aristocrat, Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin.  This interested me, as my great-great aunt Lucy (pictured below with her two children), who was born in Kashmir, also married a Prussian - Count Radolin Radolinski, Chamberlain to the royal Prussian court; privy councillor; supreme steward to Kaiser Friedrich III and  imperial German ambassador. 



Picture
In this really excellent epistolatory novel, von Arnim lays out Fraulein Schmidt’s thoughts and  a whole cast of beautifully-drawn characters so skilfully, using the device of a one-sided correspondence  ie Fraulein Schmidt’s letters to Mr Anstruther. It was published in 1907, seven years before the First World War must have put a temporary stop to young English gentlemen travelling to Germany to learn the language and culture.

I loved reading this, and  will definitely be recommending it not only to friends but also possibly laying in a copy for my baby granddaughters for some future reading. Yes, it’s that good!


*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/tories-libraries-social-mobility-conservative
0 Comments

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #4: Paul Davies

26/3/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture



​When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. 

​Here is the fourth, with thanks to Paul Davies, who studied English at University College, London, before pursuing a career in music administration. He 
writes:

Picture

​Tales of the  City
by Armistead Maupin

A feast of 70's San Francisco served up through the adventures of a diverse group of characters centred around the enigmatic Mrs Madrigal.
​
Quirky, amusing and touching - I loved the book and its sequels well before I finally got to San Francisco and explored the locations so vividly depicted.

Picture


​The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler

The film of this book introduced me to the works of Anne Tyler. Her sensitive observations of everyday minutiae build into portraits of characters for whom you really care as they navigate the emotional pitfalls of relationships and everyday life. 

Picture

​Music and Silence
by Rose Tremain

No two books by Rose Tremain are ever remotely the same. This captivating novel is set in 1629 when a young English lutenist joins the Royal Orchestra of the melancholic and idealistic Charles IV of Denmark and falls in love with a lady-in-waiting. The intricacies, intrigues and passions of the protagonists and court life are brilliantly painted - with Kirsten, the King's adulterous Consort, a particularly charismatic and memorable character.

Picture


Italian Shoes
by Henning Mankell

Quite different from the "Wallander" books for which he is probably best known, this novel begins on the frozen wastes of a Swedish island where a recluse is forced to undertake a physical and spiritual journey to confront his past and its consequences. Both interior and exterior landscapes are hauntingly realised.

Picture

​To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf

Being one of the "Godless students of Gower Street", I have always been fascinated by the Bloomsbury Group. Set during two visits to Skye, ten years apart, relationships and experiences are perceived through the mind's eyes of the Ramsay family and their guests. Emotions and thoughts constantly shift as each moment passes. It is lyrically written and the interlude "Time Passes" is as near to poetry as prose can get.

1 Comment

My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #3: Sharon Mast

18/1/2019

0 Comments

 
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is the third, with thanks to Sharon Mast, who writes:
Picture
​I was born and raised in New York City and graduated from City College of NY with a degree in sociology.  I spent my study-abroad year in Cardiff and did graduate work in sociology at the LSE.  After a decade of teaching sociology in New Zealand, I returned to New York to teach kids with open court cases in the South Bronx and, later, students with learning disabilities.  I’m now working privately with kids who need learning support and writing poetry in my spare time.  The collection of books on my shelves never shrinks because I keep buying new ones and borrowing others from the library. I have a wonderful, creative daughter and a very young and delightful grandson.
Picture
​
Strength in Stillness
by Bob Roth

When my New York Public Library reserve for this book came through, I had no recollection of how I’d come upon the title.  But I took it home and read this little book in a day.  Bob Roth took up Transcendental Meditation in the 1970’s and has been a practicing teacher of and writer about TM since then. I was so impressed by the clear and convincing account of TM’s benefits and by the scientific research that supports such claims that I did the 4-day TM training last summer and have been meditating since then. If you have even the slightest interest in taking up some form of meditation, I recommend that you read this first.


Picture

​Deep Work
by Cal Newport

​While most of us simply wonder where all our time goes and why we are not as productive as we’d like to be, Cal Newport has developed a way to maximize his productivity every moment of the day with the end result of greater satisfaction and more time to play with his young children. An assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University, Newport has devised a method for getting the noise, distractions, and irrelevant efforts out of our lives. The techniques he developed for himself are widely applicable to us all.  Reading the book transforms your view of what really matters in life and how to align your goals with your actions.  I loved it so much that I typed pages of notes from the book before returning it to the library.


Picture

​The Child in Time
by Ian McEwan

​I remember exactly where I was some 40+ years ago (my boyfriend’s flat, Stamford Hill) when I read Ian McEwan’s first collection of short stories. Since then, he has continued to be one of the few fiction writers whose work I read. I have recommended The Child in Time to countless friends. The opening chapter will send you into a paroxysm of anxiety, but your suffering will pay off. I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling it (unless you have seen the 2018 movie of the book with Benedict Cumberbatch), but it is about time, love, and grief.  And, of course, as it is by Ian McEwan, it is beautifully written.


Picture


​Stag’s Leap
by Sharon Olds

​I share with my good friend Judith Johnson a love of Sharon Olds’s poetry.  This Pulitzer Prize-winning collection was occasioned by the author’s divorce, and it is in turn raw and elegant. The poems are arranged in a narrative sequence that takes the reader through Olds’s journey from disbelief to anger to grief and, finally, to acceptance and healing. 


Picture

​The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

If you feel that your spirits need lifting after reading my last two recommendations, The Giant Jam Sandwich is the book for you. This is a children’s book that delighted my daughter when she was young, and which I often send to parents-to-be. Even very young children will be intrigued by the complex plot, for it is conveyed with such energy, action, and rhythm (along with delicate illustrations) that it will hold their attention and leave them wide-eyed as you turn from page to page.  If you want to find out how the town of Itching Down deals with an invasion of four million wasps, you’ll just have to read the book yourself.


0 Comments
<<Previous
    Picture

    Author

    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

    If you would like to subscribe to my blog, please click on RSS Feed link below:

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Arts
    Books
    Family Matters
    History
    Miscellaneous
    My Fantastic Five
    Natural World
    People
    Running & Walking
    Travel

    Archives

    February 2021
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    September 2009
    July 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009

    RSS Feed