What did you read as a child?

I don’t remember learning to read, although I do remember being read to as a small child. Once I could read, I was a voracious reader and my best birthday or Christmas gift as a ‘Book Token’ from our local bookshop. I remember spending hours poring over shelves of books, I can still smell that ‘new book’ smell deciding how to spend my five shllling voucher. I loved the Cherry Ames series …. ‘a series of 27 mystery novels with hospital settings published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1943 and 1968.’… and collected quite a library of them.

My own library ticket was the key to a whole new world. I was allowed to travel on the bus after school down to the library in Whitley Bay. It cost a penny there and a penny back… which left me a penny of my threepenny bit to spend in the sweet shop across the road. I, on more than one occasion, sat at the bus stop after I got off close to our house and read all my books because I couldn’t wait till I got home.

I remember travel books being a real treat, Ghengis Khan and Marco Polo. We were also allowed to have one comic magazine each delivered every week. I had ‘Bunty’ and Sheila had ‘Girl’.Lots of good reading there!