Musings On A Nerdy Youth

            My love affair with books began a very long time ago. I can't say exactly when it started, but I can clearly follow the trail backward in my mind through the many stories I've read and loved over all these years.

            I suppose it started in my first year at school when one pupil in class was chosen to pick the book our teacher would read to us in the last half hour before we went home.  This was my favourite part of the entire day (compulsory warm milk through paper straws being my least favourite part). I loved sitting there, cross-legged, listening to the teacher's voice and letting the story carry me away. When it was my turn to pick a book I almost always chose "The Gingerbread Man". I can remember the teacher, Miss Papworth -- of the shining black bob haircut and white Dr. Scholl's -- groaning, "Not that one again". What can I say? I was not particularly adventurous when I was five. Learning to tell the time, tie my shoelaces and ride a bike were my most pressing concerns. The Gingerbread Man took me away from all that for a while, because the poor naïve fool had worse problems than me.

            For anybody growing up in England in the early seventies, I'm sure Ladybird books would be familiar. They were thin hardbacks for children with wonderful illustrations inside. Quite "grown-up" illustrations, now that I think of it. "The Gingerbread Man" was one of these, along with "The Elves and the Shoemaker", which I adored. After a while I graduated from those books to paperbacks, such as Michael Bond's Paddington -- still have those books now on my shelf. The very first book I can remember being sad to finish was "Olga Da Polga", also by Michael Bond -- the story of a feisty guinea pig and her adventures. The moment I'd read the last page I felt so bereft without those characters at my side that I had to pick it up and start over again. I did so very furtively, because I wasn't sure whether it was allowed. It felt naughty, since I'd read it once already and was now hogging it to myself.

            I often borrowed from my elder sisters, so I was a few steps ahead of my reading age. They introduced me to Enid Blyton, who wrote about the "Secret Seven" - a gang of mystery loving friends, who drank a lot of lemonade and ate tons of gingerbread biscuits for some reason -- and the adventures of schoolgirls at "St Clare's" and "Malory Towers". I suspect those books would seem old-fashioned now, but I remember them fondly. How I wished I was Darrell Rivers with the bright eyes, freckles and jolly hockey sticks (or was it lacrosse?), always doing the right thing and coming out on top. She was the first character -- apart from Olga the guinea pig -- that I felt close to, as if they might be real. I thought how wonderful it must be to create a character like that and take them off on adventures.

            Not every book was a winner in my opinion. I remember a little grey teacher one year solemnly and dutifully plodding her way through the first chapters of "The Wizard of Oz". We were all quite appalled. This was supposed to be a children's story? Even the teacher seemed ambivalent about picking it up to read the next chapter. But we were all saved. She abruptly left in the middle of term and we were given the gift of a wonderful young and excited substitute teacher who apparently neither knew nor cared about all that, cast the reading plan to the four winds, and brought with her a copy of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Now that was a story! I think the entire class exhaled a sigh of relief, although we never knew what became of our old teacher. We were heartless little monsters and I don't remember anybody asking -- perhaps we were afraid of bringing it up in case somebody remembered we were supposed to be reading "The Wizard of Oz". The substitute, who ended up taking over for the remainder of that year, also introduced us to the very funny and original "Bottersnikes and Gumbles" -- which still makes me laugh today and yes, I still have my copy.

            Whenever I had a book token to spend for my birthday or Christmas, I'd dash off to W.H. Smith or Heffers and spend several hours making my choice, haunting the rows like a lost spirit (or possibly a shoplifter -- I'm sure I must have been followed by a few store detectives in my day, because it took me so long to choose a book). Alternately there was the library, an old house with little separate rooms and creaky floors that you had to tip-toe around on, which just added to the thrill of it all. On a rainy day there was nothing better than a trip to that library. It's been replaced now, apparently, by a modern building, bigger and smarter. And carpeted. Shame, but at least there are still books in it.

            I devoured Noel Streatfeild's stories about girls who determinedly overcame the odds to find success. Whatever the story, the plot was basically the same: poor, plain, put-upon girl, possibly an orphan, works hard, steps over the nay-sayers, has a brief setback when her ego gets too big, eventually sorts everything out and gets a hug from somebody at the end -- possibly fame and fortune too, but the hug was the thing. Her stories were safe, predictable and heart-warming. I suppose that was  my needy phase when my dreams were bigger than my possibilities. In a lot of ways those stories were like Harlequin, or Mills and Boon books, but without the men. They were for little girls who needed hope and encouragement, who needed to believe "hey, that could happen.". We all need a little bit of that from time to time.

            When I was sick - measles, mumps, you name it, I was felled by it -- and stuck in bed for days, my sister read Agatha Christie murder mysteries to me. A bit adult, perhaps, for an eight year-old, but I enjoyed it very much. The company of my sister and her soothing voice must have helped the most, because I don't remember much of the actual story.

            Later came teachers who introduced me to Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and the Brontes. While other students eyed these books with despair and slumped at their desks as if this was punishment, I lived for English class. I loved the language within those pages and the way the author could take me to another time, another world. As a glum, sulky teenager with black-painted fingernails and a self-important, Garbo-esque desire to be left alone, those books were my escape from the dreariness of the early eighties. Nobody bothers you when you're reading a book. And if they do you are perfectly within your rights to ignore them.

            It was around that time that I started writing too, rather more seriously. I'd written poems before and short horror stories, but now I began to think in chapter and book form. I wrote a new chapter in my head on the way to school every day. I kept notebooks to scribble in on my lunch break, envisioning the day when Harrison Ford or Richard Gere would play the hero in the movie version of my sci-fi masterpiece. Yes, I had grand aspirations. Blame it on the books.

            And then, one day, our English teacher set us a homework assignment to write a "lost" chapter of Wuthering Heights. I think I was the only one in that class who actually enjoyed it and was excited the next day to hand it in. I got an "A" and I can remember watching the teacher's face as she read it. I thought -- "That's what I want to do one day. I want to write books". Oh, my fevered little heart pounded away with excitement at the prospect of one day wearing fluffy, pink, kitten-heel slippers and a silk robe, to recline on a couch in the manner of a Barbara Cartland or similar. Just like that I think my stroppy teenage, "difficult" years came to an end. I had found something that I could do well and really enjoyed.

            But I had a fair distance to travel and many different routes to try along the way before I got to my happily ever after. I didn't know the first thing about how to be published and it would be quite a few years before I had a first manuscript fully in hand, fit to be viewed. Then I had to pluck up the courage to send my work out there to be judged. That's a story in itself!

            At seventeen, handing that homework assignment to my teacher, I don't know that I ever thought I would make a living as a writer; I just knew I wanted to write stories that would entertain and sweep readers away for a while to another world, as those many, many wonderful stories have carried me over the years.

   

 

So now, like a Noel Streatfeild heroine, I'm getting to do the one thing I wanted. It doesn't always come with a hug, but it makes me happy and, I'm sure, easier to live with than that anti-social teenager with a "strop" on.

Happy Reading (whatever your age)!

 

Jayne