RANDOM JOTTINGS

I cannot think of a lovelier book to start off my 2022 reviews than the Armourer’s House by Rosemary Sutcliff.  I first read it in my teens, adored it, and have re-read it many times right through to adulthood.   It is a joyous glorious book.

In the last couple of years I have discovered the Roman Age books of this author which I never read in my youth as they just did not appeal to me. I preferred the Tudor stories – The Elizabethan Story, Brother Dusty Feet and Simon (not a Tudor but set during the Civil War). I really was not interested in what I deemed the Dark Ages. More fool me but it has meant a late treat when I fell for the gorgeous editions published by Slightly Foxed. Check them out here.

But back to the Armourer’s House.  It tells the story of Tamsyn “she was like any other little girl except that she had one unusual passion: she loved ships”.  She has to leave her family home in Devon and go to London to live with her aunt, uncle and lively cousins and at first she finds it strange and her homesickness makes her unhappy.   But she gradually settles down and discovers a kindred spirit in Piers, who too loves ships but following the disappearance at sea of the eldest son, is now taking his place in his father’s armoury.  Piers is regarded by his brothers and sisters and slightly odd and a bit dull, but he and Tamsyn soon discover their mutual interest in the sea.

During a shopping expedition Tamsyn slips away to watch the ships on the Thames:

“Soon the sails would fill and she would drop down river with the tide. Tamsyn wondered where she was going; to white ports along the coast of the Mediterranean for ginger and sandalwood, or just across the narrow seas to bring back the red wine of Gascony…….

And then suddenly she saw Piers. He seemed to have forgotten the crowds coming and going all around him….he was watching the ship as though the only thing he wanted in the whole wide world was to be sailing with her”

Rosemary Sutcliff is such a wonderful writer. I could quote the entire book for you to illustrate how she conjures up a picture of a place which is so vivid and beautiful that it is in your mind’s eye as you read.  Such a rich texture of language, such beautiful use of words, each one placed so perfectly you cannot imagine it written in any other way.

I have a very old edition of The Armourer’s House published by Oxford University Press. It is battered and the pages are a bit stained but it has a dust jacket and illustrations by C Walter Hodges who is one of my favourite illustrators.   This new edition does not have these illustrations but it has a feel about it.   I know that sounds a bit silly but you know what it is like to handle a book and take enormous pleasure in the binding, the print and the feel of it? Well, this is such a one.

It is published by Manderley Press and I can honestly say I did not know of them but as they are very new I forgive myself. Well I know now. I ordered this as a Christmas present to myself (I am very fond of doing that…) and it arrived in time beautifully wrapped in orange tissue paper to match the cover.  Please check them out here and I have signed up to receive news of any new books in the future.

I love small publishing houses as I find as I get older that my interest in modern fiction, which was always rather luke-warm (I am a Victorian reader at heart) is less and less and I prefer to read books of my youth. But ignoring the fact of my preferences, if you have not read The Armourer’s House, please do snaffle a copy of this and give yourself a treat.

A lovely way to start of 2022.

Happy New Year everybody.