A Heinous Suggestion, Bangor, November 2009
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock, typically to higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter.
It’s getting cold at home in the attic rooms that have no central heating. We bring the computer down to the first floor, where the room temperature is more clement.
There is still a fireplace in the attic though. An acquaintance suggests we ‘could always burn some books’.
Madrid, 1991
Murphy’s English Grammar in Use is something of a bible for the community of teachers of English as a foreign language. As there seems to be large mark up on books sold in the shops here, I make inquiries into how to procure discounted copies for the boss of a small language school. A phone call to Cambridge University Press establishes that any money saved will not justify the hassle involved in setting up an account. My boss is appreciative of my efforts. As recompense, she gives me an old collection of teaching manuals which I now need to return to the flat and dump before going out this evening with a flatmate to watch Atletico Madrid.
I walk through a district that isn’t renowned for any ‘red light’ activities. From out of nowhere appear two blondes who strongly resemble each other. Their approach to business is incredibly brazen. Politeness isn’t a good strategy, and I have to wrench myself away from clasping hands. The bag of books impedes my escape. I pull myself angrily clear while feeling nevertheless a guilty sense of titillation.
They remind me of the Smith sisters at school, blonde-haired, blue-eyed twins — but not identical on account of Tracey’s fuller figure.
When Tracey wasn’t kissing boys, she blew bubbles of gum. Her mouth tasted of it and there were complaints, so I kept it to myself that I liked kissing Tracey. I wasn’t bothered by the synthetic fruit flavours or a sweet stained tongue. I found her prettier than Jenny, but received wisdom had it that one progressed from Tracey to her skinnier sister, a progression for which I felt no inclination.
They were in the same class as me for RE lessons that were held in a Portakabin. It comprised two spaces; the largest being where we received instruction in the affairs of the divine and a much smaller area that gave off a distinctive damp smell from the peg hung coats. The teacher would carry the textbooks into the cabin with an air of weary resignation. A deal had been struck early. Our behaviour was conspicuously unrowdy for an RE class and guaranteed to remain so in return for a minimal line of inquiry and only nominal homework assignments.
It was among the coats that we learned to kiss during the three minutes of unsupervised time that separated RE and Maths; Miss Jenkins swiftly leaving the classroom as we reached out to our partners.
The Morgan Evans Auction Centre, Gaerwen, April 2004
This is my first visit to Morgan Evans and I’m a little disconcerted to see the cattle, trucks and pens. They may hold livestock auctions but it isn’t my intention to leave with an actual lamb. A Charles Lamb maybe….
The salesroom, resembling a large warehouse, is where the ‘Household’ auction starts in twenty minutes. Fortunately there aren’t many book lots to assess. A single box grabs my attention for it contains hundreds of Ladybird titles, their trademark logo and book format instantly recognisable.
Wills & Hepworth produced the first Ladybird book during the First World War, but it was in 1940 that the familiar pocket-sized Ladybird saw the light of day. I haven’t time to examine all the books but I catch sight of a few titles that look promising — old enough to be originals in the animal series — like Downy Duckling. Some have dust jackets, which means they predate 1964.
My eight-pound bid, a modest enough sum, allows me to take home the box, which turns into a font of reminiscence. There is a complete key word series of Peter and Jane titles, which helped me, along with thousands of children, to read. And I derive in an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing a good number of their history titles: Sir Walter Raleigh, Oliver Cromwell, Robert the Bruce, David Livingstone, Captain Scott and my favourite, William the Conqueror. The cover has William on horseback, his arm raised to acknowledge the soldiers who surround him. My six-year-old ego associates itself with a conqueror. I envisage myself kneeling on the beach: ‘In landing, he/I tripped and fell. For his/my followers this was a bad sign, but he/I stood up with both hands full of sand and earth.’ Look,’ he/I said. ‘I have seized England with my two hands.’ Pronouns merge as history melts into fantasy.
My grasp of history even today has its foundation in the reading of, and having read to me, Ladybird History books. The lives of famous people and events condensed expertly into Ladybird chunk sizes. And whole page colour illustrations to boot. The diversity of the subject matter hints at the vastness of it all and how it works: cars, trees, the human body, stamp collecting, etc. Knowledge imparted, not in a dry sense but calculated to invoke wonder. And all for 2/6 Net (2 shillings and sixpence), its monetary price, marked on the front end paper, kept fixed for some thirty years. The secret to its affordable pricing? Cleverly using a 56 page standardised format that was made from just one sheet size measuring 40 inches by 30 inches.
I can sell some titles for considerably more than 2/6. The series What to Look For: in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, all illustrated by C. F. Tunnicliffe, always shift. But the discrepancy in prices between Ladybird books is difficult at times to fathom.
See below:
Item: The Story of Napoleon (A Ladybird ‘Adventure from History’ Book) by Peach, L…
Listing ID: 1111B677068
Purchased on: 2008-12-11
Postage Credit: £2.75
Buyer’s Price: £0.01
Item: Tootles the Taxi and Other Rhymes by Joyce Blaikie Clegg; John Kenney
Listing ID: 1111K102601
Purchased on: 2008-11-30
Postage Credit: £2.75
Buyer’s Price: £18.00
Phone Call to a Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, 1992
Enquiring into the value of some Victorian magazines, a friendly voice says: ‘Remember we never really own them, we are only custodians until somebody else takes over the job.’
Mind Travel, December 2006
Tipped off by my uncle that a bookshop in Palma is selling its entire stock, I make tentative enquiries. Being an itinerant bookseller allows me to dream of journeys actually taken, and to imagine others. Majorca’s major city can be reached by taking a ferry from Sète. Could an inspection of the books justify the trip?
I exchange emails with Joachim who is handling the sale. He sends me a ‘books for sale’ list as an Excel document. On it are some tantalising names. Robert Graves, as you might expect given his connections to Majorca, first editions of Allan Ginsberg’s Howl and much more besides. All in all, a mouth-watering list of collectable authors but at a bank busting price; the total in excess of sixty thousand euros.