One of the best things my parents ever did for me was give me a love of reading. I have books I was given when I was three years old, and although I don't read them 5 times a day as I did back then, they are still in my possession.
When we kids were older, Mum and Dad used to give us enough money at the start of each school holiday to buy a Puffin paperback. My favourite genre was history based fiction, whether it be ancient, medieval, or even 1950's - which (with apologies to some of our readers) I also used to think of as the olden days.
Although I no longer have most of those books, I remember them fondly, particularly the books of Geoffrey Trease. One I struggled to remember the name of was "The Red Towers of Granada" which I found recently and re-read on the internet archive.
This led me on a bit of a reading blitz, and it has to be said that the books have stood the test of time.
However, that isn't really what this blog is about (or maybe it is, who knows). The books on the internet archive are scanned copies of ex-library books, and it's fascinating where the books come from. One of the books I read, "Escape to King Alfred" - the American title of "Mist over Athelney" (a cracking good read, btw) - had a stamp on the title page that is a fascinating and a remarkable coincidence.
Back in November 2019 we met Sally and Gary from the USA, who must have gone to the Châteauroux Dépendent School when their father was posted to the NATO Air Force base at Châteauroux.
I wonder if either of them read this book, which apparently made its way back to the US when the France withdrew from NATO and the American based closed in 1967.
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