One Sunday morning not so long ago, I stepped out of my flat in Lyme Regis and walked down the steep hill into town. The day before, I had seen a poster advertising a book sale at the Marine Theatre and I was off to see if there were any old or unusual story books to be had.
I quickly scanned the stalls, discounting the usual book sale ballast: the musty Agatha Christie paperbacks; the ancient National Geographics; the redundant volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Still on the hunt for treasure, I noticed one particular stall that, from a distance, seemed to have a pleasing variety of old hardbacks on display.
As I approached – even before I could make out the black lettered title on the spine – a tall, dark-red, cloth-bound book caught my eye. There was something familiar about its size and distinctive colour. Surely, it couldn’t be? Could it?
I plucked it eagerly from the shelf and held in my hands a copy of the first story book I had been given as a small child: The Margaret Tarrant Story Book. I opened the covers and looked at the fly sheet: “Published in London, 1947” – just two years before I was born. Treasure indeed and mine for the princely sum of £4.
My childhood copy disappeared many decades ago and I hadn’t given it a thought for years. But when I flicked through the pages, I remembered all of the stories and how much I had loved them when I was five or six. There were two special favourites: Old Duster, the tale of a mouse who went to sea and The Faithful Knight, a story of chivalry and derring-do.
Was this where my love of stories really began, I wonder?
Coming Home to Story 
Greetings, Friend Geoff,
I enjoy each of your offerings, though I don’t always have the chance to say so. A busy summer and fall, but things beginning to slow now, at last. Thanksgiving Thursday I thought warmly of our feast at Emerson at Ashley’s in 2002.
Have I ever told you the story of the fellow I met who told of being camped in Egypt in the 1970s doing lots of LSD and the authorities came and confiscated everything in their camp including a rare and beloved edition of the Rubayat of Omar Kayam? For years he looked for another copy of that book on several continents in his travels around the world, but unsuccessfully (this was long before Amazon.com). Seven years later in a big city in southern India, he walked into a used book store and saw on the shelves a copy of that edition. With great joy he plucked it off the shelf, opened the cover, and saw his name printed there. Now that’s a tale.
I’ll have to get my hands on a copy of Robin Hood, illustrated by Howard Pyle, the first “big” book I ever read by myself and which I loved so much I wept when it was finished.
Love to you and Chris,
Garth
PS After having lost Chris’ comb she sent me for two months, I just found it today (nice thematic closing) to shouts of glee.