A box full of yesterday

Mostly a mother - 29 Apr 18

It was an effort to cut the costs of catering to the tastes of my nascent bookworm which sent me up into the under-eave cupboards of my parents’ loft. I found myself rather begrudging the £6.99 I had spent on a book my daughter was desperate to read when she happily told me she had finished it the very next day. While, after a slow and somewhat frustrating start to the world reading, it was both heartening and pleasing to see her devouring books so voraciously, my budget does not stretch to the price of a new book a day.

We visit the library regularly but her attention to these tomes, so eagerly picked with the brightly-illustrated covers playing a significant role in their selection rather than the content, is often fleeting. Charity shop books seem much more expensive than I remember. While I am happy to fund a book habit over a sweets one, I would rather be parting with my hard-earned cash on books that she will both want to read and which she will get something out of. A planned visit to my parents’ house reminded me – many years ago when I decided I no longer needed a whole host of my childhood books, I boxed them up. And they made their way into the loft where they have remained. I couldn’t remember what I had kept – the Faraway Tree collection, perhaps? My childhood addiction to Elinor M Brent Dyer’s Chalet School series? There were bound to be books that she could try out – at zero cost – then when she had found something she liked, I could invest in more of the same. An unfortunate misunderstanding between my sister and me meant some of my beloved books, kept faithfully with the intention of passing on to my own children one day, had been sold at a car boot sale – but she had assured me at the time that hardly any of mine had been sold. There were treasures to uncover, I was sure of it.

There were grumblings when my father pulled the boxes filled with stamps and other paraphernalia away from the cupboard door. It wasnt easy, either, to get to the first box I could see which clearly contained books. After heaving a few other boxes filled with a bewildering array of random items out of the way (I have no idea why I thought I needed to keep E45 cream… for 15 plus years) I managed to get it out.

It wasn’t the box I thought it was. The box I remembered quite clearly was a fruit crate with handles – fairly shallow but wide. This was a deep squarish box with the flaps dangling over the side and books spilling out of the top. And what books. Not the childhood classics of my memory. Instead, a world of fantasy. Of dragons and magic kingdoms. Of strange lands where people sang at crystals (yes, really). And, as I recall, with a fairly significant overspill of sexual awakening (involving, in some cases, crystals and dragons in some magical but not at all weird and perverted fashion). As far as I can recall, these were the books I left on my shelves at home when I left for university – important enough to keep but not urgent enough to bring.

There were a few classics amongst the pile. I pulled out Heidi, Goodnight Mr Tom, a selection of Gerald Durrell and the Diary of Anne Frank. Little Women and Good Wives too. These could go on the pile for my daughter. The box itself has also come home with me (my mother was fairly clear about the fact that once out of the cupboard of doom, it wasn’t going back in again). But those magical worlds in which I lost myself will be headed to the charity shop. I accumulated the complete works of David Eddings,LE Modesitt, Anne McCaffrey and Piers Anthony over the course of years. I waited eagerly for the next one. All my money went on books and I never left the library without a library card’s worth of books. I spotted the novel which inspired the short fairy story I submitted for my A Level coursework. I remember the sense of thrill the first time I read the (really rather tame) sex scenes for the first time (it was quite different to those depicted in Just 17 and More magazine).

What this box of memories – my 17-year-old self preserved, almost, in a box – reminded me of is how much I love LOVE to read. As a governor at my daughter’s school I can get almost evangelical about the transformative power of reading. In my job as communications manager at an independent school I can wax lyrical in a variety of media about how important it is. I am sure I bore my daughters senseless about it. But this was the first time in a long while I really felt it. With two children, a not quite full time job, a husband with long-standing mental health issues and a voluntary role as a governor, the amount of time I have to spend reading is limited. When I do find time, more often than not I am woken by the sensation of the book hitting the bridge of my nose. Hurts even more when it’s a kindle, somehow.

As a teenager, I was unpopular, bullied and would regularly over-compensate for intense self-consciousness by being brash and tactless. I cared very deeply about what other people thought about me and I constantly felt like I was doing it wrong. I spent my lunchtimes alone, hiding behind the Art block, reading. Or in the library, reading. In the form rooms, you guessed it, reading. I agonised over what to wear or what I said and how I was perceived. It never occurred to me to hide what I read. I couldn’t give a shit what anyone thought about my choice of reading material. It was mine.

The box I retrieved is not filled with great literature. It’s not stuff which necessarily bears rereading (although at one point I did read The Lord of the Rings in its entirety roughly once a year until my English teacher gently suggested widening my scope). But this box was the source of SO MUCH JOY. I had to know what happened next. I would read until 3am and then read as soon as I woke up in the morning. Then on the bus to school. Then at break time. I remember reading as I walked through the streets and narrowly avoiding walking into people. I remember feeling twitchy if I had less than two books on the go at any one time.

So why not share this box with my daughter if it brought so much pleasure? For one thing, a lot of it is wildly age inappropriate. More importantly, this was my reading journey. Hers will be different. I want her to find her own passions, just as I found mine. I realised my mother must have gone through the same thing when I was a little girl. Today, together, we picked out the first Monica Edwards’ Wish for a Pony story, the first Swallows and Amazons. I wonder if they will spark her imagination as they did mine and ny mother’s before me. I wonder if Wish for a Pony will survive the journey – it’s in tatters. I realise in a much more visceral rather than academic sense how lucky I was to grow up in a home full of books.

As well as a corking fantasy selection, my box also contained some X Files novels, the Top 10 of Everything, a few texts I studied for school and Franz Kafka’s The Trial. That book I did read because it was a book I thought I shoukd read. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy…

The picture of my box of forgotten wonders is unedited – although I did put the X Files book in a slightly less prominent position. I probably mind a bit more than I once did if you judge me for what I read. But it won’t stop me reading it.

Mostly a mother

Mother to two wonderful girls. Writer, dancer, grammar pedant. Lover of cake, biscuits, tea, my family and friends.

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