Reading aloud in English lessons, sharing a text with thirty
other boys. Books read in class have stayed with me all my life. Cider with Rosie, Lord of the Flies even
The Invisible Man.
We also read The Sign of
Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We were told to skip the chapter that dealt
with Sherlock Holmes' cocaine problem. Of course, we all read the chapter
outside the lesson, and it remains the most memorable part of the
story to me.
Then there were the books outside the curriculum. Lots of
TV tie-ins, Edgar Rice Bourough's Martian Chronicles featuring John Carter, and the other
Carter, the horribly sexist and violent Nick Carter books. It's probably just as well my parents knew
nothing of the contents of these nasty, James
Bond inspired, tales.
I
first discovered Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh while studying
for O level English Literature. Officers and Gentlemen was one of
my set books and I decided to read the complete Sword of Honour trilogy.
The subsequent television adaptation of Waugh's Brideshead
Revisited led me to read most of his novels over the years.
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