Writing on the internet, sharing your words with anyone who cares to read them, wasn't an option during my childhood. Reading meant books or magazines (from Twinkle through Bunty, to Smash Hits and beyond).
I was a keen reader, particularly of old-fashioned stories - I dreamt of going to school at Enid Blyton's Malory Towers * or sailing with the Walker children from Swallows & Amazons ** (though even at age seven, I knew 'Titty' was not an appropriate name for a little girl). Looking back, my choice of books was very much influenced by my family, perhaps none more so than my paternal grandmother, who was custodian of my favourite book of all: Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia.
The encyclopedia had been bought when my father was young and comprised ten thick brown volumes of over 7000 pages. My grandparents had taken good care of it and were pleased to share its secrets with me and my younger sister. Many of the stories in its pages had been sanitised, presumably to protect our innocence. The Oedipus story was featured in some detail, but the bit where he fucks his mum went unmentioned. That kind of dirtiness, though, would not have traumatised me as much as Gelert, the Faithful Hound, which my Welsh grandmother read to us on many occasions. The tale of Gelert made me feel unbearably sad, but despite that, it was my favourite story for a time and one that I've never forgotten.
Arthur Mee's book wasn't all about stories. It had science, history, religion, geography, literature and whole host of other content, presented as educational, but with heavily Christian and imperialist undertones. This was a world where Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Siam appeared on maps and it was acceptable to say that "the Albanian people are mostly rugged, illiterate peasants". There were 'nice' children's stories from the Bible and other, very weird, stories such as the one about a little boy who carves a lion out of some butter and becomes famous. In Mee's world, it was scientifically correct to use the title 'Queer and Lowly Creatures' for an article about sponges. If you wanted to learn about fjords, you only had two short paragraphs available to read, which were immediately followed by an eighteen page article on 'Gothic Architecture in England' that included numerous photographs of abbeys and cathedrals. It may have been the 1980s, but thanks to my grandparents I was acquiring the knowledge of a 1960s middle-class child.
Despite the encyclopedia's best efforts, I eventually worked out how modern life should be and got on with business of growing up. Its dusty pages lost their appeal as I discovered new joys - restyling my Sindy dolls as mutilated punks signalled the transition from childhood to grunge-loving teenager - but the books stayed on their shelves until my grandmother died a few years ago. Responsible for distributing her belongings, my father asked if there was anything in particular I'd like to have, maybe a piece of jewellery? There was of course only one possible answer, which is how I've been able to quote the content of those books today - over 7000 pages of history are now on the bookshelf in my lounge.
Reading Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia with my grandmother, I learned how words and knowledge can be a wonderful shared experience. Perhaps that's why I'm now sharing some of my own.
Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia was last printed in the 1960s, but can be bought on Amazon from independent sellers (but not from me - my copy's going nowhere)
* I ended up going, as a day-girl, to a school that had boarding houses. It was nothing like Malory Towers.
** I went on a boating holiday with friends in 2002. It was nothing like Swallows & Amazons.
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