Best Beloved has recently been lured into reading my copy of the classic 1930 boys' adventure story by Geoffery Prout, Scouts in Bondage, which has been lurking on my bookshelves for many years. As he describes in his post, the book achieved a minor degree of fame in the late 20th century on account of its mildly comedic title.
How the book came into my possession was on thiswise: many, many years ago a group (7) of us, camping in North Wales one excessively hot August Bank Holiday weekend*, happened upon the volume in a second-hand bookshop in Machynlleth. It was priced at £1.25. Of course, because of the extremely chortle-able title, we all wanted to buy it but, being both penurious and fond of beer, weren't prepared to stump up the readies, thinking it better to hang on to our ha'penny for the coming night's drinkage. Then we came up with the idea of a consortium purchase - divide the cost into 7 (17-and-a-half pence each or thereabouts) and we each buy a share and circulate the book amongst us. So that's what we did (though one of our number, being even tighter than the rest of us, wasn't prepared to shell out, so her more Rockerfellerian husband bought two shares - why on earth we didn't just divide by six instead I'll never know).
Over the years I have made it my business to acquire, by fair means or foul, the shares of my fellow Bondage-ites, ending up with five of the original seven and permanent caretakership of the book. Since good quality copies sell (according to AbeBooks) for anything up to £150, I'd say it's not been a bad investment. Wish I could remember which of us has the remaining two shares though, then at last it could be mine, all mine ...
* this weekend was also noteworthy for the fact that temperatures rose to the high 70s but, in a classic demonstration of my extreme neshness, I remained huddled in my duffel coat complaining that it was 'a bit chilly' I had the last laugh though: everyone else suffered spectacular sunburn and shed skin like snakes for weeks afterwards, while I smugly flaunted my pale-and-interesting-and-I'm- never-going-to-get-skin-cancer-(at-least-not-from-sunburn) look in their red flaky faces.
How the book came into my possession was on thiswise: many, many years ago a group (7) of us, camping in North Wales one excessively hot August Bank Holiday weekend*, happened upon the volume in a second-hand bookshop in Machynlleth. It was priced at £1.25. Of course, because of the extremely chortle-able title, we all wanted to buy it but, being both penurious and fond of beer, weren't prepared to stump up the readies, thinking it better to hang on to our ha'penny for the coming night's drinkage. Then we came up with the idea of a consortium purchase - divide the cost into 7 (17-and-a-half pence each or thereabouts) and we each buy a share and circulate the book amongst us. So that's what we did (though one of our number, being even tighter than the rest of us, wasn't prepared to shell out, so her more Rockerfellerian husband bought two shares - why on earth we didn't just divide by six instead I'll never know).
Over the years I have made it my business to acquire, by fair means or foul, the shares of my fellow Bondage-ites, ending up with five of the original seven and permanent caretakership of the book. Since good quality copies sell (according to AbeBooks) for anything up to £150, I'd say it's not been a bad investment. Wish I could remember which of us has the remaining two shares though, then at last it could be mine, all mine ...
* this weekend was also noteworthy for the fact that temperatures rose to the high 70s but, in a classic demonstration of my extreme neshness, I remained huddled in my duffel coat complaining that it was 'a bit chilly' I had the last laugh though: everyone else suffered spectacular sunburn and shed skin like snakes for weeks afterwards, while I smugly flaunted my pale-and-interesting-and-I'm- never-going-to-get-skin-cancer-(at-least-not-from-sunburn) look in their red flaky faces.
2 comments:
Nice use of the word "nesh". I thought that my mother was the only person who used it!
Ah, 'tis a word of which I am enormously fond, and one which so perfectly descibes my condition
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