I have to
confess straight away that I am only a functional
reader of hobby magazines, newspapers and the
like. I very rarely curl up with a good book, a
novel or thriller! I am still grieving for the
first complete story book that I read way back in
autumn, 1963. Red Pennons Flying,
(Joyce Reason), was a first year English
literature book, one of three set for our first
eng lit exam in December, 1963 along
with A Christmas Carol and The Thirty Nine Steps.
I had like all newts that year to read all three
independently at home while we were introduced to
Shakespeare in class lessons through Julius
Caesar.
I managed to read two out of the
three, failing even to open Buchans
thriller! However, fates conspired to bring an
abridged illustrated version of The Thirty Nine
Steps via the newspaper boy three days before the
dreaded exam. Look and Learn, (my
mothers choice of reading for me after
cancelling my weekly Tiger comic), came to my
rescue enough for me to blag my way through and
get a score of some 62%. I still have my old
report book, you see.
Red Pennons Flying was a tale of a
young lad press ganged as a cabin boy onto a ship
to France in the Middle Ages. He finds himself
witnessing the Battle of Agincourt before
returning to his father's farm some years later.
Not a masterpiece but I really remember enjoying
it.
Later years, brought me into contact
with other Shakespeare's such as Midsummer
Night's Dream, Henry V and for GCE 'O' level,
(along with Animal Farm and World War One Poetry)
Macbeth. I remember as a fifth former being taken
to the highly progressive Everyman Theatre to see
Macbeth on a school trip. All the actors appeared
in black bodysuits and there was no scenery, very
confusing for a philistine. In later years, I
came to realise that they produced a blank screen
for me to superimpose my own images of MacBeth
and Banquo et al. I remember as a twenty year old
going on a date to see Polanskis MacBeth
and hating it. Perhaps, Polanski stopped me
imposing my vision!
It was as a 22 year old that I then
read my first paperback from cover to cover by my
own choice and what a choice I made.
Papillion by Henri Charriere was not
only overlong but made me wish that he would
never finally succeed in escaping from Devil's
Island, but I was determined to finish one book
and strode on manfully to the end.
So why have I let you into my
literary desert? I hanker after reading Red
Pennons Flying again but nobody else ever
seems to have heard of it in until I went into a
second hand bookshop in Tintern, who found out
its real title as opposed to my beleif that it
was called Red Pennants Flying!. Whatever
happened to the book? I know that all PGS copies
must have been victims of the arson attacks but
please somebody re-unite me with my first
childhood reading adventure
I am
pleased to report that I have tracked down a copy
of the book for sale in.....New Zealand! Should I
buy it or will it disappoint me, is it better
kept as a golden vision of my past?
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