John Betjeman’s Letters edited by his daughter, Candida Lycett Green, span fifty-eight years (1926 – 1984) from his student days until his death in 1984.
The cinema across the bridge in Windsor was out of bounds making it a particularly desirable destination. The usherette knew the drill. I sat in the front row beside the emergency exit and if a beak or member of Pop arrived she’d come forward and I’d bale out.
I remember seeing the great Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder combo in The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974) but I never clocked that The Producers was made into a musical in 2001.
I get muddled between Bowles and Burroughs. Both American writers who lived in Tangiers, were gay and of a similar vintage; Bowles 1910 – 1999, Burroughs 1914 – 1997.
On a wet Sunday afternoon at boarding school time seems to pass slowly. Today a week passes more quickly. This is because aged eight a single afternoon takes up as much memory space as a month now that my memory has become chocker.
I didn’t know Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas both died in 1870, nor did I fully appreciate that some of their best known novels were published as serials.
These authors have recently been introduced to me. I have read the first in the Erast Fandorin and David Audley series and have all the James Marwood historical thrillers ahead of me.
I am skating on thin ice or walking on dangerous ground most days, pontificating on a wide range of matters of which I am largely ignorant. If I could remember even half the material I have read over the past nine years to bone up on blogs I would have an enviable all round education.