Some
years ago I was at my Daughter's School summer fate. As I was browsing
through some old books I noticed sandwiched between A Bill Bryson and a
pop up Tweenies book was A large black book. This book was called
Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain......Published by The Readers
Digest in 1973
The reason this book stopped me in my tracks was because I had not seen a copy of this book for decades. The last time I saw a copy of this book was in the summer of 1977 on a shelf round my friends house. My friend and I noticed this book one dull day in our 6 week summer break. We were both bored and could not find anything to do...until by chance
we came across Folklore myths and Legends of Britain.
As we started flicking through the book our interest grew and the boredom factor diminished. We decided It was time to make a cup of tea have a sneaky Cigarette and put the 1st Clash album on and......read. By the time the tea had been drunk and the Clash had long since had their Career Opportunities and been in Garageland. We knew about The Haunted Fens, The Haunted Moors, The meaning of some sea Shanties, The Ghost Ships of Goodwin Sands, The Old man of Storr, The Rollright Stones, customs and curses, Smugglers and Highwaymen and women. We could not get enough of these old tales and legends. More tea was made The Stranglers entertained us musically and we read more and more. One night over the summer The film Witchfinder General was on TV. We both watched it. When my friend and I met up the next day we looked up Mathew Hopkins in the book. There he was... page 248. There was no mention in our book about Hopkins being hacked to death by Ian Ogilvy. In fact according to the book Hopkins more than likely died of TB. As the summer holiday drifted on we revisited the book many more times. Deciding that we should go and visit as many of these places and investigate as many of these strange things as possible. Alas we never really visited any of the places we had read about. Traveling from one end of the country in search of Ghosts weird things and all sorts of oddness was not really possible on about 50p a week pocket money. So by early Sept as the school term loomed nearer and nearer the book was put back on the shelf and for some reason we never really looked at it again. So by just seeing this book at the school fate all those memories from that long lost summer came flooding back. I picked the book up and asked how much?????
"50p" was the reply
50p for 552 pages of Folklore Myths and legends of Britain and some amazing memories. Now I know that you can find copies of this book on ebay and Amazon...but of course they are not on there for 50p. Well I parted with 50p and went home. Made a cup of Coffee put the Clash on and started to read.
The reason this book stopped me in my tracks was because I had not seen a copy of this book for decades. The last time I saw a copy of this book was in the summer of 1977 on a shelf round my friends house. My friend and I noticed this book one dull day in our 6 week summer break. We were both bored and could not find anything to do...until by chance
we came across Folklore myths and Legends of Britain.
As we started flicking through the book our interest grew and the boredom factor diminished. We decided It was time to make a cup of tea have a sneaky Cigarette and put the 1st Clash album on and......read. By the time the tea had been drunk and the Clash had long since had their Career Opportunities and been in Garageland. We knew about The Haunted Fens, The Haunted Moors, The meaning of some sea Shanties, The Ghost Ships of Goodwin Sands, The Old man of Storr, The Rollright Stones, customs and curses, Smugglers and Highwaymen and women. We could not get enough of these old tales and legends. More tea was made The Stranglers entertained us musically and we read more and more. One night over the summer The film Witchfinder General was on TV. We both watched it. When my friend and I met up the next day we looked up Mathew Hopkins in the book. There he was... page 248. There was no mention in our book about Hopkins being hacked to death by Ian Ogilvy. In fact according to the book Hopkins more than likely died of TB. As the summer holiday drifted on we revisited the book many more times. Deciding that we should go and visit as many of these places and investigate as many of these strange things as possible. Alas we never really visited any of the places we had read about. Traveling from one end of the country in search of Ghosts weird things and all sorts of oddness was not really possible on about 50p a week pocket money. So by early Sept as the school term loomed nearer and nearer the book was put back on the shelf and for some reason we never really looked at it again. So by just seeing this book at the school fate all those memories from that long lost summer came flooding back. I picked the book up and asked how much?????
"50p" was the reply
50p for 552 pages of Folklore Myths and legends of Britain and some amazing memories. Now I know that you can find copies of this book on ebay and Amazon...but of course they are not on there for 50p. Well I parted with 50p and went home. Made a cup of Coffee put the Clash on and started to read.
