Swallows, Amazons, Ds and Coots
A most notable day, making up for the disappointment of postponed svisitors.
I recently had a long (ultra-pedant-moi) discussion with coritiacus about the Great Aunt, which led me to think about a Ransome read-through.
(Many thanks to Moderator
pisica for permitting the completely off-topic discussion that went on for about 36 hours. There was some time to sleep and cook and do a few other things.)
I was horrified to find that half of our 40 - 50 year old volumes had suffered far worse in storage than I'd realized, and were unreadable.
I went to look for replacements and found that a fat and unwieldy scarlet-covered Red Fox would cost £7.99 . The modern parent has to pay £96 for 12 volumes that look and feel far too fat and unwieldy for the spines to last more than two readings?
In two secondhand shops in Llandudno and Bangor I found the earlier Red Fox edition - scarlet titles, but a pleasing blue-edged spine that looked as if it might last. The children look modern on the front cover, but the original maps and other Ransome illustration are there.
Sadly, Coot Club, the one that has suffered worst, wasn't there, but we now own five newish volumes at a cost of around £10.
For those who care about these things, Snowdonia Books in Bangor has a sizeable pile of Chalet School paperbacks and a huge stack of William (Richmal Crompton) hbs and pbs.
I recently had a long (ultra-pedant-moi) discussion with coritiacus about the Great Aunt, which led me to think about a Ransome read-through.
(Many thanks to Moderator
pisica for permitting the completely off-topic discussion that went on for about 36 hours. There was some time to sleep and cook and do a few other things.)
I was horrified to find that half of our 40 - 50 year old volumes had suffered far worse in storage than I'd realized, and were unreadable.
I went to look for replacements and found that a fat and unwieldy scarlet-covered Red Fox would cost £7.99 . The modern parent has to pay £96 for 12 volumes that look and feel far too fat and unwieldy for the spines to last more than two readings?
In two secondhand shops in Llandudno and Bangor I found the earlier Red Fox edition - scarlet titles, but a pleasing blue-edged spine that looked as if it might last. The children look modern on the front cover, but the original maps and other Ransome illustration are there.
Sadly, Coot Club, the one that has suffered worst, wasn't there, but we now own five newish volumes at a cost of around £10.
For those who care about these things, Snowdonia Books in Bangor has a sizeable pile of Chalet School paperbacks and a huge stack of William (Richmal Crompton) hbs and pbs.