Finding Treasure Island

I’ve just bought a secondhand copy of the first book I ever owned. I think I got it as a Christmas present when I was either four or five. It was published in 1956. I really loved this book. I don’t think I could read all of the words at first. But each page of text had dramatic colour illustrations. Like many other children, this book sparked my imagination and stimulated my sense of adventure. I don’t know what happened to my book after I’d finished with it. I suppose it got handed on to my younger brothers and then on to nephews and nieces. It was no longer in the house when we came to clear it after my parents died. I’m delighted to now be reunited with this lovely book.

I was an avid reader as a child. I quickly graduated to the full text of Treasure Island, followed by a series of other classics: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Coral Island and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. These would all have been Christmas or Birthday presents. We had hardly any books in the house, apart from a set of cheap encyclopedias, first published in 1922, which I devoured. So I used to read my father’s crime novels after he had finished with them. These were pulp paperbacks that I suppose he’d bought in Woolworths.

Around this time, a teacher asked my primary school class to bring in the book they were reading at home. Many kids brought in picture books, some brought in children’s classics, I brought in a pulp crime novel. The teacher was horrified. My parents were summoned to the school and given a stern lecture by the headmaster about the suitability of reading materials for young children. I would have been seven or eight. There was no mention of my advanced reading ability or that I might have been a gifted child.

The rest of my formal education included many beatings from teachers and regularly being told that I was stupid. It wasn’t until I returned to study at the age of 27 that I discovered I had a good brain. A distinction in my Masters led to a Manchester University award enabling me to study for a PhD, then followed a career in Higher Education that culminated in an Emeritus Professorship.

Treasure Island really did sow the seed of adventure in me. This took me rock and ice climbing, high altitude mountaineering, fell running, wild camping and on long-distance cycle tours in developing countries. These adventures were an education in themselves, and built qualities of resilience and determination in me that I’ve needed to call on many times in my life.

The Big Heat

This film noir, directed by Fritz Lang in 1953, is infamous for the scene in which Lee Marvin assaults Gloria Grahame with a pot of boiling coffee. But I’m referring to the remarkable week of sunny weather with unbroken blue skies that we’ve just had in Northern Ireland. With temperatures of 25 degrees and over, it was more akin to what you’d find in the Canary Islands. In truth, NI only has two real seasons: it’s either ‘boilin’ or ‘freezin’, with the latter holding the upper hand for most of the year. ‘Boilin’ usually puts in an appearance for a day or two at best, before cool conditions return. But this last week has been exceptional and has done wonders for retailers of sunscreen and ice-cream. Indeed the heat built up so much in the house that we had to keep the curtains closed all day. Even so, it was still uncomfortably warm at night. Had the heatwave gone on, we would have needed to commence the Spanish practices of having a siesta and eating at 9 pm. Today our normal summer weather has returned: overcast skies, drizzly rain and only fleeting glimpses of the sun.

I realize that most of Western Europe and Southern England have been suffering from intense heat for many weeks. But the weather is very different here. We don’t have any glaciers to melt, our rivers have not run dry and the grass is still green. Unbroken blue skies and sunshine all of the time sounds lovely. But in fact it becomes burdensome and tedious. I lived in California in 1992 and ended up looking forward to the periodic rainstorms. This taught me that it’s variation in the weather that makes life interesting. It also probably shapes the culture and norms of these islands. I’m just owning up to enjoying a week of bright sunshine amidst the months of overcast skies.