Retrospective

This may be an odd blip for a Scot to post on Hogmanay, but because of the recent lurgie I've postponed our celebrations till tomorrow and may well be heading bedwards before the bells ...

But I am looking back. Not at 2016, but much further, to 1957, when this particular Puffin book was published and bought for me (in Arran, I think, in Alexander's in Brodick) and on back to its publication in 1946. At the time, I felt it was one of the most grown-up stories I'd read - more so, even, than Treasure Island or Kidnapped; on a par with Conan Doyle's Sir Nigel or The White Company, with a scary bit that I grew to be wary of reading in bed. I didn't know then that it was only Roy Fuller's 4th publication, that he would go on to be a poet and writer that the adult me would know of despite having forgotten that he'd ever written this book. (You still with me?) I loved it, and I read it several times between the ages of 12 and 14.

Recently I've been re-reading some childhood books to see how I feel about recommending/giving them to assorted grandchildren. And right now, as I've been feeling stressed, I'm reading Savage Gold. And it appals me. It's set in Kenya, and the attitudes are those of Colonial times. It's wonderfully written, with no condescension towards the children who will be the prime readership - no wonder I had an extensive vocabulary before I hit secondary school. 

The fist page carries the familiar synopsis common to Puffins of the day - you could tell right away if a book was for you by checking there. This is how it concludes:

Kenya is the background of the fast, thrilling story, and the descriptions of scene and life are brilliantly sharp and clear. It is a book for the eager reader, even boys and girls as young as eleven or twelve, but it can be read with equal satisfaction by young and adult.

A sort of Buchan for the next generation, I suppose - and with almost identical difficulties for the 21st century reader. I think I'll just hang onto it for now ...