The finest Christmas book of them all...

That's the Purple Pim!

I do date from pagan times and age makes joints do creak

...The Wolves Are Running - Paul Bommer

Leave Us Not Little, Nor Yet Dark

Beware of Yesterday

 

 

 

The Spider in the Web

 

 

 

In The Darkest Cellars Underneath

Where Shall The Nighted Showman Go?

 

 

 

When the Wolves Were Running

We are now at the time of waiting for the arrival of Christmas - we have started to read The Box of Delights (John Masefield 1935) as we do every year at this time. At some stage during advent we will watch the wonderful 1984 BBC TV adaptation. We usually time the last episode with Christmas Eve - a fully stoked fire, large pot of tea with muffins and crumpets galore.

Both of the Masefield Kay Harker adventures (The Midnight Folk 1927 and The Box of Delights) would firmly be on my desert island book list. I have not read any book that has transported me to other places as these two books have done - the joy of sharing it with my own children is just as exciting as the day I was given a copy at school.

As it happens the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read featured The Box of Delights this last week. Presenter Harriett Gilbert was joined by soon to be TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady and medical historian Ruth Richardson to discuss their favourite paperbacks. You can listen again here, but do not be put off by O'Grady's grumpish review.

Sara Ogilvie - Box of Delights Folio Society Edition

There will be more snippets from this delightful book over this advent period for which I offer no apology. If you watch the BBC TV adaptation, parts of it were filmed at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. When Kay and the Jones children sail their boat and are spotted by Abner Browns gang it is only feet away from one of my very first wild carp fishing pitches! As a young lad I was driven to Eastnor on a regular basis to fish off the dam wall and had many an adventure of my own in the grounds of that magnificent castle. If only the wolves were running then.     

Time and tide and buttered eggs wait for no man

The wonder of Christmas through a childs eyes is something to behold especially when you see them take part and consume the rituals that have been with a parent for many a moon. We have many - the specific Thomas Hardy location where the holly is cut, the yule log and Christmas Eve Kelly Kettle brew up and fire. There is one other however that brings more excitement than all the others put together and that is The Box of Delights.

If we are lucky we get to read the book by John Masefield (1935 - also known as When The Wolves Were Running) but the most eagerly awaited ritual is the delightful 1984 BBC adaptation starring Patrick Troughton as Cole Hawlings and Robert Stephens as the evil Abner Brown. A perfect BBC production at the time of the Radiophonic Workshop.

The central character is Kay Harker who, on returning from boarding school, finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box, which allows the owner to go small (shrink) and go swift (fly), experience magical wonders contained within the box and go into the past.

The owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlings, whom Kay meets on a railway station. They have an instant rapport, and this leads Cole to confide that he is being chased by a man called Abner Brown and his gang. For safety, Cole entrusts the box to Kay, who then goes on to have many adventures which are set with a magical Christmas backdrop.

I can remember, back in 1984, excited beyond belief as on Christmas Eve the final episode was transmitted. The excitement begins a few days before we start the first episode and we finish on Christmas Eve with the last. The screams of excitement are just as loud as those on Christmas morning. Long may it continue - whatever our age.