you only have to read the lines of scribbly black and everything shines
(subtitle : Origin of the Tatty Goat)
Over the past two weeks I've been spending the majority of my evenings cleaning the garage out. It's partly so I can go ahead with the photo thing, but also because I'm tying up a lot of loose ends and sorting everything out that I've long left undone. Cleaning the garage is step one, and it's mostly been drudgery; hours of sorting through various forgotten tools and tat and the odd mummified rat. But I am occasionally finding some really neat things, some of which I haven't seen for decades. This is one of those things.
Everyone has books from their childhood that left a deep mark, and this is mine. I hadn't seen it last since childhood, and seeing the cover again after all these years took me suddenly back to that place. I remember how scary that cover was, but scary in a way that somehow just teetered on the brink of being frightening. That and other illustrations would come to life in a series of lucid dreams I had as a kid in South Petherton, ie before I was 7.
It all started when I slipped into a lucid dream where my sisters were warning me about this very book getting 'tatty', because this would cause the creatures inside to become real. As they were saying this I felt myself emerging to the surface again, eventually surfacing to find myself suddenly awake, sitting up on the top bunk of my bed, very much alone in the utter stillness and dark of the early hours. I could feel myself breathing, moving, feeling.
And then I heard a noise.
I couldn't describe it then or now; there was simply nothing on Earth to compare. It didn't frighten me, but I started feeling a sense of something beyond. I sat there as watched the bedroom door as the noise slowly grew louder, and closer, and louder, and then.. they appeared. Standing in my bedroom were two animals; one of which whose species would fade from memory over the years, one who I would never forget.
The first was a large, horned goat, named 'The Tatty Goat'. The other introduced himself as -I shit you not - the Walking Chicken, even though he was not a chicken. On reflection it's probably not surprising I remembered the massive goat who called himself 'The Tatty Goat' and forgot what species the 'Walking Chicken' (who wasn't a chicken) was. Anyway, I remember very little else other than I was always intrigued by them, especially the goat. They would talk to each other in a way that was otherworldy, neither friendly or menacing. I was both afraid and in awe at the same time.
I tried for years to remember what the Walking Chicken was, or what book it was exactly. I know I was a little bit obsessed with the Billy Goats Gruff, but I don't remember having a picture book of that, and there aren't any other animals in it that could explain the Walking chicken.
But today I found myself staring straight at them again. Behold, the Tatty Goat and the Walking Chicken :
Seeing them again after all this time briefly opened up that special area of the brain which closes off the further away childhood becomes. That place which maybe we return to near death. In short, I have been an altered state of mind ever since I saw them, especially the Tatty Goat, who was undoubtedly the catalyst for my undying love and obsession for goats. They represent something intangible, something otherwise inaccessible; a twilight sleep state of consciousness that I long to return to.
Foxes, not so much. Or chickens, walking or otherwise.
Although none of the other illustrations had quite the same impact, every single one is burned deep into my subconscious. They were so beautifully drawn, and all somehow sinister in a way I still can't adequately put in words.
As a footnote, I did find one illustration more un-nerving as an adult that I did as a child :
Oh dear.
Over the past two weeks I've been spending the majority of my evenings cleaning the garage out. It's partly so I can go ahead with the photo thing, but also because I'm tying up a lot of loose ends and sorting everything out that I've long left undone. Cleaning the garage is step one, and it's mostly been drudgery; hours of sorting through various forgotten tools and tat and the odd mummified rat. But I am occasionally finding some really neat things, some of which I haven't seen for decades. This is one of those things.
Everyone has books from their childhood that left a deep mark, and this is mine. I hadn't seen it last since childhood, and seeing the cover again after all these years took me suddenly back to that place. I remember how scary that cover was, but scary in a way that somehow just teetered on the brink of being frightening. That and other illustrations would come to life in a series of lucid dreams I had as a kid in South Petherton, ie before I was 7.
It all started when I slipped into a lucid dream where my sisters were warning me about this very book getting 'tatty', because this would cause the creatures inside to become real. As they were saying this I felt myself emerging to the surface again, eventually surfacing to find myself suddenly awake, sitting up on the top bunk of my bed, very much alone in the utter stillness and dark of the early hours. I could feel myself breathing, moving, feeling.
And then I heard a noise.
I couldn't describe it then or now; there was simply nothing on Earth to compare. It didn't frighten me, but I started feeling a sense of something beyond. I sat there as watched the bedroom door as the noise slowly grew louder, and closer, and louder, and then.. they appeared. Standing in my bedroom were two animals; one of which whose species would fade from memory over the years, one who I would never forget.
The first was a large, horned goat, named 'The Tatty Goat'. The other introduced himself as -I shit you not - the Walking Chicken, even though he was not a chicken. On reflection it's probably not surprising I remembered the massive goat who called himself 'The Tatty Goat' and forgot what species the 'Walking Chicken' (who wasn't a chicken) was. Anyway, I remember very little else other than I was always intrigued by them, especially the goat. They would talk to each other in a way that was otherworldy, neither friendly or menacing. I was both afraid and in awe at the same time.
I tried for years to remember what the Walking Chicken was, or what book it was exactly. I know I was a little bit obsessed with the Billy Goats Gruff, but I don't remember having a picture book of that, and there aren't any other animals in it that could explain the Walking chicken.
But today I found myself staring straight at them again. Behold, the Tatty Goat and the Walking Chicken :
Seeing them again after all this time briefly opened up that special area of the brain which closes off the further away childhood becomes. That place which maybe we return to near death. In short, I have been an altered state of mind ever since I saw them, especially the Tatty Goat, who was undoubtedly the catalyst for my undying love and obsession for goats. They represent something intangible, something otherwise inaccessible; a twilight sleep state of consciousness that I long to return to.
Foxes, not so much. Or chickens, walking or otherwise.
Although none of the other illustrations had quite the same impact, every single one is burned deep into my subconscious. They were so beautifully drawn, and all somehow sinister in a way I still can't adequately put in words.
As a footnote, I did find one illustration more un-nerving as an adult that I did as a child :
Oh dear.