Bags I Read that After You!

[Angela Woodford]

Jo! Well remembered! Jean Plaidy - of course!

Except I never seemed to be able to borrow anyone's Jean Plaidy. She seemed always to be bursting out of schoolbags, tumbling out of lockers and concealed under desk lids. However, I never really had a desperate longing for a Jean Plaidy. Somehow, the very name sounded so.... sensible.

Now - for all of my life - no, really! - I've been haunted by a scene from an Anya Seton. I'd been reading the book under the covers in the dorm. Why has this particularly Anya Setony moment stayed with me? Daughter (tumbling yellow hair) views the body of her beheaded father (father?). There he lies in his coffin, smaller than she thought he would look, with his head reattached. The join at the neck is hidden by a ribbon, lightly marked with just a few rust-coloured bloodstains. Why the rust-coloured bloodstains on the ribbon should have stayed with me my whole life, I just can't say.

Anyway thinking of Bags I Read That After You, I did a Wikipedia Anya Seton look-up. The novel is Devil Water - Jacobite Rising - Earl of Derwentwater - Charles Radcliff beheaded after 1745 Rebellion - daughter Jenny (tumbling yellow hair) by Secret Marriage. With a good wail of Northumbrian Pipes. There it all is! Back under the covers, Munch, it's nearly lights out! Then you'll have to go and read it in the loo, whoops, "down-the-end".

I'm so sorry I couldn't supply you with the missing two "Jalna", Frances. My godmother would have been delighted.

Other AS titles I'd forgotten; the rather soppy Green Darkness, The Winthrop Woman and Avalon.

After Gerrie (gma) had put me into a Georgette Heyer mood with a Facebook message, I had a Regency day from then on. It's amazing how many men, just innocently strolling around, whom you can imagine in breeches if you're in the mood. But not a CH-days passion for me.... I don't think we had her in 6's House library? I may be wrong.

Sorry, Mazo de la Roche, it's off to the Oxfam shop with you!

[MaryB]

For some strange reason I have also hung onto 'The Nun's Story'

Is it a green Pan with Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch looking respectively demure and sultry on the cover? Mine was my mother's and has fallen to pieces somewhere along the line... very sad.
That book has a lot to answer for: "Sister Luke, would you be big enough to fail your examination for the sake of charity?" Of course, she doesn't and from then on you know her vocation is doomed. Not that I ever had a vocation to be a nun, but it did for some reason make a huge impression on me and, along with the CH approach to Christianity as a mix of self abasement and guilt, convince me that God wanted us all to be doormats. It took me more than 20 years to get over that.
It's a pity I haven't got over my ability to indulge in displacement activity....back to the sermon ....or perhaps I'll go and collect the cats' flea treatment from the vet.....

[J.R.]

I'm sure the 'Lady Chatterley' court case was going on during my time at Horsham.

I seem to remember dashing out in the holidays to by a copy after it was cleared of obscenity.

Woodland flowers have never seemed the same to me since !

[MKM]

What about Daphne du Maurier? Jamaica Inn was one of the first adult books I read, sitting by a radiator in sixes day room on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure if I want to re-read it now, in case I'm disappointed.

[Katharine]

What about Daphne du Maurier? Jamaica Inn was one of the first adult books I read, sitting by a radiator in sixes day room on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure if I want to re-read it now, in case I'm disappointed.

I know just what you mean. I think Katherine and some of the Jean Plaidy books come into that category for me!

[sejintenej]

I'm sure the 'Lady Chatterley' court case was going on during my time at Horsham.

Woodland flowers have never seemed the same to me since !

Yes, it was and I guess it was resolved in 1960. Allegedly a copy was placed in the school library but I don't know what restrictions were placed on it. We did ask Kit Aitken (housemaster Col A and a confirmed bachelor) if he was going to read it and his answer was along the lines of "No, I'll wait for the film".

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I don't know if I am recalling the passage from the same novel, but I too remember reading of rust coloured stains around a corpse's neck.

I'm pretty sure that we did have a library in 6s. Post exam reading for me was Alastair MacLean.

[Fjgrogan]

I seem to remember that Lady Chatterly was doing the rounds during my time at Hertford, suitably disguised in brown paper, but I never did get to read it - still haven't, in fact. And yes Mary, my copy of the Nun's Story is the very edition you describe - I had a bit of a thing about Peter Finch (Town Like Alice too). Nevile Shute - that is the other author I have the complete works of from Heron Books. The Nun's Story was one of the few films that we were all marched off to the County Cinema and made to watch. The others I remember were Henry V (Olivier) and The Dambusters. I think I must have read every Jean Plaidy ever written - I think she is the same person as Victoria Holt. Later I progressed to Norah Lofts, as well. And I am afraid I am about to embark on Catherine Cookson - but I shall cheat - I have bought a set of DVDs from Reader's Digest. All this in between reading such non-fiction as 'Cut the Clutter', and 'Is There Life After Housework?' etc etc!

[Jo]

Whilst perusing my bookshelves this morning I came across some Juliette Benzoni novels too. Does anyone remember her? Catherine, Catherine and Arnaud, and One Love is Enough. Historical novels (of course!) set in France - in fact they might even have been translated from French. Very racy for innocent teenagers

[icomefromalanddownunder]

And I am afraid I am about to embark on Catherine Cookson - but I shall cheat - I have bought a set of DVDs from Reader's Digest. !

Sean Bean: oh yes

[Angela Woodford]

Whilst perusing my bookshelves this morning I came across some Juliette Benzoni novels too. Does anyone remember her? Catherine, Catherine and Arnaud, and One Love is Enough. Historical novels (of course!) set in France - in fact they might even have been translated from French. Very racy for innocent teenagers

I do remember - Denise Brownlow had one of them! White cover, heroine with tumbling yellow locks flaunting a Massif Central of cleavage! I didn't even dare ask to borrow. Denise Brownlow and Maureen Flynn were the femmes fatales of 6's, and way above my league when it came to book-borrowing status.

I feel sure they were translated from the French, and looked very racy indeed. Although, come to think of it "One Love is Enough" is pretty virtuous, isn't it?

There's a book I remember devouring in the dorm before the Rising Bell - it was called "Our Mother's House" (tries hard to remember....) family of children with lone mother... mother dies... they make a shrine with the the body in the back garden and gather daily to commune with it...

It was so gripping that when the Rising Bell went, I was completely disorientated. I'd been grieving over a long-dead corpse, asking it what to do today, etc.

[Fjgrogan]

........... but Angela, my missing two (Wakefield's Course and Centenary at Jalna) are on your list! Please don't consign them to the charity shop!

[Angela Woodford]

OH! Whoops!

There - rescued!

From amongst the pile of Jalna books has fallen a yellowed newspaper cutting with a potted history of Mazo de la Roche, from the North Toronto Star 7 August 1984. It's quite interesting, Frances; you might like to read it! Her real name was Mazo Roche. Believing that a French aristocrat in the Roche family had fled to Ireland to escape persecution, she added the "de la" herself.

( Blissfully, on the other side of the cutting is a promotion for a Full Course Lobster Feast $9.95 only at the Peter the Fisherman Restaurant, 2900 Steeles Avenue East!)

AFAIK, my godmother had no contacts in Canada - a little mystery!

I've a horrible feeling that I wrote your address in a notebook which has gone missing!

[Fjgrogan]

Angela - thank you. I shall e-mail you my address.

[Fjgrogan]

PM sent, Angela. Why did I think I had your e-mail address in my system? Anyway, isn't it surprising how many people seem to be spending their early Sunday mornings online?!