What did you read as a child?

As a very young child I do remember my mother reading A.A.Milne to me. Bear in mind that there was little or no new publishing of books during the war so any books had to have been published in the 1930s and were treasured possessions, but by listening to my mother and following the words in the story I slowly picked up the hang of it. That was reinforced by my very earliest experience of a school. This was in Corsham and it was a one room school set up like a lecture theatre with the youngest children on the front row of seats and then progressing to the older children on the rows behind them, each row a little higher than the one in front.

There was only one teacher and maybe 50 pupils and the only way that the teacher could cope was by adopting a form of mentoring system and I do recall that I would be taught by one of the older children. Seemed to work quite well. Just for fun one of my favourite poems was: Waiting At The Window These are my two drops of rain Waiting on the window-pane. I am waiting here to see Which the winning one will be.

Both of them have different names. One is John and one is James. All the best and all the worst Comes from which of them is first. James has just begun to ooze.

He's the one I want to lose. John is waiting to begin. He's the one I want to win. James is going slowly on.

Something sort of sticks to John. John is moving off at last. James is going pretty fast. John is rushing down the pane.

James is going slow again. James has met a sort of smear. John is getting very near. Is he going fast enough?

(James has found a piece of fluff.) John has quickly hurried by. (James was talking to a fly.) John is there, and John has won! Look! I told you!

Here's the sun! I think that I Iiked it because of the names. As I got older and we moved back to Wolverhampton I learned to like all sorts of books mostly children's fiction from authors such as Enid Blyton who wrote dozens and dozens of books, the Famous Five Series alone had over 20 books in it and there were others too like the Secret Seven and Adventure series. Another author was Arthur Ransome who wrote a series called Swallows and Amazons.

Later in my early teens I I enjoyed the stories of Captain W.E. Johns who wrote the Biggles series that featured the adventures of James Bigglesworth, a pilot, and his pals. He also wrote two similar series the Gimlet and Worral series. Gimlet featured the adventures of a commando officer and the Worral series had, as the leading character, WAAF Flying Officer Joan Worralson.

I was an avid reader then so after school on Saturday ( we attended school from 9:00 to 12:10) I would cycle into town to visit the public library pretty well every week, although I was also a member of a subscription library that was available at "Boots the Chemist" for many years. I remember that you had to go upstairs from the retail shop to get to it. Those Saturday afternoons I also would love to visit Start's second hand bookshop which is where I first found references to the Burslem family that subsequently ignited my interest in family history.

Seventy years later I still enjoy a good novel though my taste in authors has changed!