Now I say crows but I have no exact idea what type of black bird they were but each morning they make that same mournful cry.
And that in turn transports me back to Edmund Waller school sometime in the winter of 1959 or early 1960.
I would have been in 3b with Miss Prentice and during reading time I happened on a book about country life.
It was the story of Jack and must have been published in the late 1930s.
But despite its age and pretty battered appearance it was magic and drew me in to the life of a boy who would have been about my age.
There is little of the book that I remember save one picture of a winter scene out across open fields with just the odd tree to break the landscape.
And the accompanying text focused on the crows on the branches making that mournful noise.
It struck a chord then and still does today a full 58 years later and it’s a memory that surfaces every winter.
Picture; the Rec, 2013, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
And that in turn transports me back to Edmund Waller school sometime in the winter of 1959 or early 1960.
I would have been in 3b with Miss Prentice and during reading time I happened on a book about country life.
It was the story of Jack and must have been published in the late 1930s.
But despite its age and pretty battered appearance it was magic and drew me in to the life of a boy who would have been about my age.
There is little of the book that I remember save one picture of a winter scene out across open fields with just the odd tree to break the landscape.
And the accompanying text focused on the crows on the branches making that mournful noise.
It struck a chord then and still does today a full 58 years later and it’s a memory that surfaces every winter.
Picture; the Rec, 2013, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
No comments:
Post a Comment