Monthly Archives: January 2023

Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep by Eleanor Farjeon

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Elsie Piddock Slips In Her Sleep by Eleanor Farjeon was first published in 1937, but my copy of the book was published by Candlewick Press in 1997. It is illustrated by Charlotte Voake and it’s a cute wee volume measuring just 7.5 inches by 4.5 inches (19 by 11.5 cm) with just 61 pages.

This is a bit of a fairy tale. Elsie Piddock lives in Glynde under Caburn where a lot of other little girls live too, and they mainly survive on bread and butter because their mothers can’t afford much more for them to eat. That doesn’t stop them from having fun though and as Elsie grows up she hears the older girls skipping after school, she’s looking forward to being old enough to join them out there.

When Elsie starts to practise skipping using her father’s braces her mother realises that it’s something she’s really good at, she has potential to be a champion skipper, so they buy her a proper skipping rope. Everyone’s amazed at Elsie’s skipping prowess and by the time she was seven years old even the fairies had heard of Elsie and her skipping. Andy Spandy (truly!) the Skipping Master teaches Elsie new ways of skipping and before long she’s better than any of the fairies.

The local hill Mount Caburn is the venue for skipping and years later the land is under threat from a greedy new landowner, he intends to build a factory there, but he doesn’t bargain on having to deal with the by now 109 year old Elsie.

This is a lovely tale for all ages.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel was a re-read for me, I originally read it back in 2012, you can read my thoughts on it then here.

I enjoyed the book just as much this time around. Again I was amazed at the behaviour of Anne Boleyn, not that I think she was guilty as charged, but that she was so sure of herself where Henry was concerned and had arguments with him, and threw tantrums. I read the love letters between the two of them, which you can read on Project Gutenberg here. Considering that she strung him along for seven years it’s no wonder Henry was more than a wee bit disgruntled.

I don’t think I noticed at my first reading of it that there were a few mentions of Cromwell’s father Walter going out of his way to help his son out of difficulties, but he had kept it secret from Cromwell, so he didn’t discover his father’s kindness to him until he was an adult and well on his way in his career. Cromwell had hated his father, with good reason as he was abusive and brutal, especially when drunk. But Cromwell’s harsh upbringing helped form the man he became.

I couldn’t help thinking about the Johnny Cash song – A Boy Named Sue.

Another thing that struck me was the number of men called Thomas who were around the Tudor court of that time. It’s not a very common name nowadays, Thomas seems to have been like the ‘John’ of the early 20th century. There are almost no Johns nowadays, but plenty of Jacks.

So why were so many men named Thomas in Tudor times? I can only think that they might have been named after Thomas Beckett. As biblical names go Thomas isn’t a great one to choose as the Thomas in that was ‘doubting.’ It’s a mystery to me, do any of you have any thoughts on the matter? For some reason names have always interested me.

If you’re interested you can read Jack’s thoughts on Bring Up the Bodies here. I’m now reading The Mirror and the Light.

Search and Find – Pride and Prejudice and Lights! Camera! Alice!

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A few years ago I was in TK Maxx having a bit of a wander, when I came across some children’s books in the toy section. I sort of collect children’s illustrated books but I’m quite picky about them, they really have to feature artwork that I love. I don’t absolutely love the illustrations in this one, but they do have a naive charm and with the P&P subject I couldn’t resist it.

Search and Find - Pride and Prejudice Illustration

This is apparently a classic series which is supposed to help youngsters get into classic literature. I think it probably works as I first met Shakespeare through the Charles Lamb versions. The story is briefly retold by Sarah Powell and the illustrations are by Amanda Enwright.

I also bought a book called Lights! Camera! Alice! Although this book is for small children it has an unusual subject matter. It is The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker, by Mara Rockliff and illustrated by Simona Ciarolo.

Illustration from Lights! Camera! Alice!

Lights! Camera! Alice! Internal Illustration

I must admit that I had never even heard of Alice Guy-Blache who was born in France in 1873, but this is a lovely book which briefly and entertainingly tells her life story, and I like the illustrations.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – a re-read

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I decided to read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall again, I rarely re-read books but in my mind this is a book that I remembered loving, imagine my surprise when I looked back on my 2012 thoughts on it and discovered I wasn’t that enthralled with it. You can see what I thought of Wolf Hall here. I suspect that when I watched the TV series with all the sumptuous costumes, settings and good acting I was enamoured.

Anyway, this time around I did really enjoy it. As it happens I discovered that late at night on TV Wolf Hall was being shown again, so I ended up watching it at the same time I was reading the book and realised that all of the dialogue is exactly as it was in the book.

Wolf Hall begins in 1500 and ends in 1535, but does slip back to the 1520s for a few chapters early on. It was definitely interesting times. I very much doubt that a neglected and abused child in the 20th or 21st century could have risen to the heights that Thomas Cromwell did, which is quite depressing really. Cromwell was definitely a flawed human being (which of us isn’t?!) but especially within his family and personal life, he comes across as being a good guy with really likeable traits.

You can read Jack’s thoughts on the book here.

Books stats – 2022

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I’ve been perusing the old jotter that I use to write down the details of books I’ve read, as I finish them. It looks like I’ve read:

38 books by male authors

65 books by female authors

21 by Scottish authors

34 historical fiction books

9 non-fiction books

8 vintage crime books

3 books in translation

35 classics

18 children’s/YA books

1 poetry book

20 ish on my Kindle

I was surprised to see that there’s such a difference between the male and female writers, in previous years it has been fairly 50 – 50. I have read quite a few aimed at children or young adults and most of them have been by women I think. I must have missed some out though as according to Goodreads I read 115 books in 2022 so my stats don’t quite add up correctly. I was also surprised to see that I had read only eight vintage crime books as that is one of my favourite genres. In 2023 I hope to read more vintage crime, classics, books in translation and non-fiction. That’s the plan anyway!

New to Me Books – from Edinburgh

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We visited Edinburgh today, dodging Princes Street as there are no secondhand bookshops there, we headed for Stockbridge where there are a few charity bookshops. I bought:

Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken

Elsie Piddock by Eleanor Farjeon

My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin

Little Plum by Rumer Godden

The Little White House by Elizabeth Goudge

The Stolen Sister by Joan Lingard

The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff

Quite a few of these ones are aimed at children or young adults. Have you read any of them?

Robert Burns Cottage, Alloway, Ayrshire

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Robert Burns cottage, Alloway, Ayrshire

In October we spent a couple of nights away in Ayrshire, Jack had a football match to go to and we also wanted to visit Dumfries House, but we also managed to squeeze in a visit to Robert Burns’s Cottage, his birthplace in Alloway, the last time we were there it was shut so I had never been inside before. The photo above is the front of the house, right on the main road. Robert Burns was born here in 1759.

The photo below is the back of the cottage, the left hand side would have been where the animals were housed in the past.

Burns Cottage , Alloway, Ayrshire

I was shocked at how small the cottage is. It’s quite expensive to visit this place and I was thinking it was way overpriced, but I hadn’t realised that the entrance fee also included entry to a nearby Burns museum and it took us a long time to look around that, so it was well worth the cost – and the cafe was good!

Robert Burns,Inside Cottage 1

Inside Cottage, Burns Cottage, Alloway

Robert Burns, Inside Cottage

The three photos above are of the living/dining/ bedroom. It’s a very small room with a bed recess and the four wee gowns represent the children who shared the bed apparently, however there’s only one bed in the place so I suspect everyone piled in this, or some were on the floor, otherwise they must have had another bed in the other room in those days.

Below is the kitchen/living room.

Inside Cottage , Burns cottage, Alloway

Inside Cottage, Burns Cottage, Alloway

About three or four steps in either direction is the length and breadth of these rooms, I suppose they would have been cosy, especially with the heat from the animals who were housed in the other side of the cottage. This is a clay and thatch cottage which was built by his father in 1757. It took us about five minutes to look around this cottage, it’s so small and if anyone else is in a room you are in it’s crowded. I’m not sure about the pieces of his poetry which have been written on some of the walls and furniture, it sort of detracts from the historic feel of the place I think, no doubt others would disagree.

We didn’t have time to look around the area this time, but we did that on a previous visit, when the cottage was shut, it’s a really lovely area you can see a previous blogpost here.

Rington’s jigsaw puzzle

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Last Christmas we were given a double sided jigsaw puzzle, it sounded like a bit of a nightmare to me so it languished in its tin tea caddy packaging the whole year. This year we got another Rington’s puzle so I rolled my sleeves up and got on with the first one. As you can see even the puzzle is shaped like a tea caddy.

Rington's jigsaw puzzle

It was actually a lot easier than I had anticipated although I wouldn’t have tackled doing the green side of it, when we had completed the puzzle we carefully turned it over to this side, just to see what it looked like.

Rington's jigsaw puzzle

Rington’s is a hugely popular company based in the north east of England, unusually they only trade through reps, not in shops, so people still have their goods delivered to them at their home, although nowadays they use a van, not a horse-drawn cart.

Completed Rington's Jigsaw Puzzle

My 2022 in Goodreads

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At the beginning of 2022 I signed up on Goodreads to read 100 books within the year, but I actually managed to read 115. I signed up to read 100 books again in 2023. I find it’s a good way of keeping track of my reading, mind you I still jot them down in an old school jotter too, very old!

Anyway, if you’re interested you can have a look back at everything I read over the last year here.

At the moment I’m re-reading Wolf Hall this is a complete indulgence for me, I rarely re-read anything, but I loved that series so much I just had to visit it again. It’s also sort of in memory of Hilary Mantel who died so unexpectedly (for me anyway) last year.