Around the time I started to get into spaceships and aliens I was given a book for Christmas called The Wishing Chair, about two Edwardian children who have spiffing magical larks. I hid it in embarrassment. 1905 is all our yesterdays
This book was EVERYTHING to me when I was a kid! I was delighted to read it aloud to my daughter (now 10) but I'm not sure that she was as charmed by it as I had been at her age. I love your observation about the "particularly English kind of upper middle class penury," which was very mysterious to me as an American kid in the 80s.
Thank you! It's very mysterious to all of us, believe me. The British class system is entirely clown-based. Your essay about the economics of Anne of Green Gables is great - it had literally never occurred to me to wonder how Anne ended up on that farm https://thinkofthechildren.substack.com/p/to-be-of-some-use
Did he... bring home babies he found? ;-) Thanks Emma! I'm a big fan of your Substack BTW - required reading for everyone who would really like Starmer to be doing a bit... *more*
But he was a Professor of Statistics who went on high level academic tours and he also had the best voice in the whole wide world for reading the Just So Stories - so made up for it in other ways!
Loved this. Galoshes was my mystery word. What on earth? And the idea that people lived in town - or "Up West" as we called it despite being further west than them (like you I grew up in far SW suburbs - Teddington). So exotic - and yet familiar. My grandparents predated this era so I grew up with bread & milk for supper and sides-to-middle sheets and my grandmother's extraordinary wardrobe (ancient undergarments - drawers, she called them, and rather elegant crepe dresses that were literally decades old). But was myself a 70s kid. You evoke the familiarity and the puzzlement so well.
Ballet Shoes is a book I've read and reread so many times. I read it to my daughter too. I was disappointed with the TV adaptation a few years back. I loved the 3 girls, their different characters and paths in life. I also read The Painted Garden also by Noel Streatfield - it's about another London girl who moves to Hollywood and meets Pauline and Posy.
Around the time I started to get into spaceships and aliens I was given a book for Christmas called The Wishing Chair, about two Edwardian children who have spiffing magical larks. I hid it in embarrassment. 1905 is all our yesterdays
Now I want to re-read!
All you need is a rainy afternoon. I’d skip the bit about ‘The Bluebird’ though
This book was EVERYTHING to me when I was a kid! I was delighted to read it aloud to my daughter (now 10) but I'm not sure that she was as charmed by it as I had been at her age. I love your observation about the "particularly English kind of upper middle class penury," which was very mysterious to me as an American kid in the 80s.
Thank you! It's very mysterious to all of us, believe me. The British class system is entirely clown-based. Your essay about the economics of Anne of Green Gables is great - it had literally never occurred to me to wonder how Anne ended up on that farm https://thinkofthechildren.substack.com/p/to-be-of-some-use
I adore this book. It has shaped me in so many ways. From my feminism to my love of the arts. My Grandpa is also the spit of GUM!
Did he... bring home babies he found? ;-) Thanks Emma! I'm a big fan of your Substack BTW - required reading for everyone who would really like Starmer to be doing a bit... *more*
Sadly no additional babies.
But he was a Professor of Statistics who went on high level academic tours and he also had the best voice in the whole wide world for reading the Just So Stories - so made up for it in other ways!
Thank you - that's really very kind!
Loved this. Galoshes was my mystery word. What on earth? And the idea that people lived in town - or "Up West" as we called it despite being further west than them (like you I grew up in far SW suburbs - Teddington). So exotic - and yet familiar. My grandparents predated this era so I grew up with bread & milk for supper and sides-to-middle sheets and my grandmother's extraordinary wardrobe (ancient undergarments - drawers, she called them, and rather elegant crepe dresses that were literally decades old). But was myself a 70s kid. You evoke the familiarity and the puzzlement so well.
I met the Blue Bird in Maeterlinck.
I also loved this book as a child and others by Noel Streatfield. I’m happy to be reminds of them and to know they are not forgotten.
Ballet Shoes is a book I've read and reread so many times. I read it to my daughter too. I was disappointed with the TV adaptation a few years back. I loved the 3 girls, their different characters and paths in life. I also read The Painted Garden also by Noel Streatfield - it's about another London girl who moves to Hollywood and meets Pauline and Posy.