RANDOM JOTTINGS

The reading block I mentioned in my last post is still holding though I have managed to read a crime novel in the last week, but I still have this reluctance to tackle my To be Read pile which has gained a few more titles in the last few days. So I went off to Cambridge for the day and to meet up with my author friend Jan Jones for lunch.  I have known Jan since my early blogging days and we meet up a few times a year for food and gossip and it is always a lovely occasion. A year ago Jan appeared at An Afternoon of Romance at the Felixstowe Book Festival, alongside Kate Hardy, a Mills & Boon writer and a great time was had by all.   Jan had also allowed me to borrow her entire library of Freeman Wills Croft books, many of which are hard to come by, and I could not be more greatful.

It was a gorgeous day, sun shining, blue sky and, as ever, Cambridge looked wonderful. Now that my daughter Helen is back there as a Fellow of St Johns I shall be visiting even more….

St John's College where Helen is a Fellow

Kings College Chapel

On the way back to pick up my bus back to the Park an Ride I passed an Oxfam bookshope and felt it would be churlish to ignore it so popped in. I find nowadays that most charity shops seem to stock the same titles, loads of Fifty Shades of Grey, Dan Brown and chicklit but you never know what you will find and it is always worth a look. As I mentioned in my post last week on Elizabeth von Arnim, I came across a whole box of her books in Cambridge, so there is always the chance of a good find.

My back was aching really badly by the time I got into the shop and my arthritic knee was ditto so did not feel like lingering long when I spotted a book cover I recognised on a shelf close to the floor. So I bent down to the accompaniment of gunshot cracking knees and came across these:

I had two of them on my shelves but they are old and battered and ex-library copies and these were in pristine condition. I get the feeling they have sat on shelves for over forty years (they were published in the sixties) and not touched. They have that musty dusty smell of books that have sat a long time and I intend to put them by an open window and let the fresh air get at them a bit.

I had recently discovered Queen Victoria around the time these were published having just read Victoria RI by Elizabeth Longford, a ground breaking biography, that had me enthralled and the publication of this selection of the Queen's letters to and from her daughter Empress Frederick of Germany were perfectly timed. Roger Fulford was the editor and how he managed to fillet the letters down to a readable selection must have been incredibly difficult to do.  The sheer volume of letters from the Queen throughout her long life and reign is simply staggering and her character, her wit, humour, trenchant views and humanity come through every line.  There would have been even more if Princess Beatrice had not burned so many of them after her mother's death. Not sure I can ever forgive her for that.

But we have plenty to be getting on with and I have already dipped into Volume I and am loving them all over again.

So a good day all round..