I
grew up in a house with no television, but I don’t ascribe my life-long love of
books to any lack of visual entertainment. The house did have a couple of
radios, one of which was in my bedroom. Where my own children revelled in the
adventures of Captain Kirk in Star Trek,
I revelled in the exploits of Jet Morgan in Journey
Into Space. Where my kids enjoyed the range of nineteen seventies and eighties
television programmes, I enjoyed the golden years of nineteen fifties radio. No,
my love-affair with books wasn’t anything to do with the existence or lack of competing
entertainments. Books appealed to me because they were immensely personal, far
more so than any radio programme.
When
I read a story I was there with the
key character to a far greater extent that I was with any radio character (or,
in later years, with any television character). The authors of the books I read
as a child had the ability to penetrate my brain to the point where I was
actually with the Walker children on
Wildcat Island, I was with Bunter at
Greyfriars School, I was with J C T
Jennings at Linbury Court, I was with Bunkle
on his adventures. I think it was that experience of taking a journey to
another place inside my mind that gave me that lifelong love of books. With the
benefit of hindsight, I can see that the stories I read actually coloured my
way of thinking and behaviour in my early life. Books went a long way towards
making me what I am.
Kindles are great for long journeys, holidays, and when your eyesight is beginning to fail...
ReplyDeleteI prefer to handle a real book too -- except for hardbacks which I can no longer see the point of.
In the nineteen fifties the cost of buying books in hardback was prohibitive to many people, unless you belonged to a book club selling cheap editions. To own a real, publisher's edition hardback and hold it lovingly in your hands was pure pleasure. To read your favourite author in publisher's hardback - your own copy - was a real joy. To me, it still is.
ReplyDelete