There are many aspects of my childhood I would not wish to replicate for my children. Sleeping, for two years, on the foam rubber cushions from a Volkswagen caravanette. My father's 'modish' Bombay Mix Curry. Living in Wolverhampton.
The one aspect I cannot fault, however, is the literature. When my parents moved from Brighton to Wolverhampton, when I was two, more than half of their luggage was in the form of three huge suitcases, full of children's books, which my mother had been collecting at jumble-sales for years. They kept the suitcases under their bed and, every few months or so, when we were deemed finally 'old enough,' a new handful would be brought out. We started on Mable Lucy Attwell, Shirley Hughes, The Mr Men and Noddy, and slowly progressed through The Faraway Tree, Mallory Towers, Ballet Shoes, Narnia, Alice, Blyton's 'Adventure' series, Arthur Ransome, E Nesbitt and then, through Spike Milligan's war memoirs and the Brontes, into the wide-open uplands of my parents' own, adult bookcases.
I have to say, I think it was the perfect selection. The definitive selection. Indeed, I actually think that list is a fairly comprehensive list of what it would take you to be a 'proper' child, that would then turn into a 'proper' adult. I can't really have a full conversation with someone who can't discuss the two lesbian tutors in Ballet Shoes, remember what it was like to come across the knitting sheep in Through The Looking Glass, cry laughing thinking of Oswald's monologues in The Bastables, or confess to having had a wank over Mr Rochester.
Since Dora's seventh birthday, in February, I've been reading her the first three Naughtiest Girl books by Enid Blyton. God, they're even better than I remember. So brilliantly written ' both wholly on a level with, and ever so slightly pushing, the reader/listener.
They actually work as wonderful parenting manuals ' showing children working out their problems for themselves, and seeing the consequences of not only their actions, but their personalities. They tackle some pretty big issues, as well: ugliness, anger, loneliness, laziness, obesity, parental disaffection. At the moment, Julian ' the clever, actually quite sexy boy with the 'goblin-grin' ' has his mother's life hanging in the balance. Only a life-long commitment to cease his deployment sneezing-powder in Miss Ranger's class, and use his 'fine brains' to further medical research, instead, will save her.
Both Dora and Eavie actually do seem to have become more thoughtful, calmer, more articulate people since we started reading them. Like our weekly appointment with How To Look Good Naked, The Naughtiest Girl works as a spring-board to discuss a gigantic number of issues, and really keep on top of what's swirling around in their lovely little heads. Even if it is, as with Eavie yesterday, a query on how often baby cows grow up to be humans.
I just might never bother with a book written after 1962. I just might live in my mother's suitcases.