First Remembered Read ~ Horror Novel

Those of us who read, and who are influenced by books, tend to squirrel away our memories of all the stories we have read over the years. 

And yet, there is always that one special book tucked away in the far corner of your mind which reminds you just why you love reading so much…

During July and August I've invited a few friends to share their First Remembered Read


😈 This week we are talking ....horror 😈


I'm thrilled to welcome to Jaffareadstoo


Lainy, blogger at So Many Books, So Little Time

My first horror was IT by Stephen King, I was a kid and had no business reading such a book at such a young age but it kicked off a love affair with reading and horror, I have never looked back. 

I loved watching horror on the TV, back then it was black and white Dracula with Christopher Lee or the slow B&W zombie movies, I have no idea how I got my hands on such a book but I was sucked in.  Like the movies only you get to read and see your own "movie" at your own pace.

Back then it was a difficult time growing up in the conditions we did, reading was a way to completely escape, more so than zoning into a movie.  You could take the book outside with you or curl up with a pillow under the bed, I loved doing that.  The dog would come under too, on a really good day we would secret a picnic of snacks under there too!

I loved it, I re read it again in 2010 and gave it 5 stars.

Not only do I still have a copy of it (hardback 1987 edition), I also have a kindle version of it too.  So funny I picked this email up today, on the way home from our trip I had left my book in my bag in the boot of the car.  The weather was vile so I picked up my mobile and opened the kindle app on it.  I started reading IT on there as the movie remake is out next month and I want to reacquaint with it.  I also watched the original movie a while back with Tim Curry.  When I got home today I dug out my hardback copy and it was the perfect excuse to get my newest bookmark out. 

Since blogging and all the online book clubs I find I have mostly been reading review books, crime, psychological thrillers, chick lit and not read horror in such a long time.  I love books that get you on the edge of your seat.  I am only 130 odd pages in and already we have spooky, supernatural, abuse, friendship, love, death, homophobia.  Whilst the heart of the book is horror there are so many branches and themes and I think reading it as an adult you get a different take on the book.  Still going to be freaked out, Pennywise is such a creepy horrible entity who wouldn't be!  

Helen, blogger at Life of a Nerdish Mum

A lot of people my age started out on Goosebumps books, but I was a Point Horror girl. I still remember the first one that I read and I still own my copy now, it’s battered and beaten but I still love it and will be keeping it until it falls to pieces. (I’d share a pic but some of my books are packed up due to us moving soon).

That first Point Horror was The Cheerleader by Caroline B. Cooney. I picked it up from the library initially, the cover caught my eye with the blood stained shoe and discarded pom pom, which I can still see vividly without even having to look it up! I then bought my own copy at W H Smiths with book vouchers I had won at school. I had enjoyed it that much. It’s weird remembering so much detail, but this book really stands out in my reading history. I remember feeling scared while reading it, but enjoying the feeling and wanting to read on to see what happens. It was what started my love affair with horror.

I don’t read as much horror (or watch it) now as I did following reading The Cheerleader, but I do still enjoy picking up a Point Horror or Goosebumps book if I see one at the library that catches my eye.

Gordon, blogger at Grab This Book

My first horror, I can remember it so clearly as I had held the book in my hand every Saturday for several weeks before I bit the bullet and finally bought it. I should explain…

It was in the late 1980’s and although I was just 14 I had landed my dream job, I was working Saturdays in the local bookshop.  I quickly found that a weekly wage and a generous staff discount were two of the best things to bestow upon a bookworm. It also helped that paperbacks were usually priced around £3.99.

One of my duties in the shop was to dust the books and polish the shelves. I had responsibility for the paperbacks and this included a sizeable horror section. After weeks of shaking down The Exorcist, riffling the pages of Jaws and admiring the quantity of output of King and Koontz I could not resist the lure of trying one of these books. But which one?

I wanted one which would not be too creepy. I did not know if I could actually read through a horror story without freaking myself out. After weeks of deliberation (and plucking up my courage) I went for Pet Sematary. I read it over the couple of days and if I am honest, I was a bit underwhelmed. But I wasn’t terrified in the way I had worried I may be. The next week I bought Cujo, The Shining and Lightning by Dean Koontz. I inhaled them and I spent the next 12 months on a horror book reading binge: King, Koontz, Hutson, Laymon, Herbert.

Pet Sematary is remembered fondly as the book which introduced me to horror stories but, almost 30 years later, I still don’t consider it to be one of Stephen King’s best. Some stories from that horror binge of 1989/90 stay with me to this day and they rank highly amongst all the books that I have ever read…Phantoms (Koontz), The Rats (Herbert), The Dead Zone (King).

One book has never been bettered. I first read it in a wooden cabin in a Norwegian forest, miles from the nearest town, and I maintain that the remoteness of that cabin only increased my terror levels while I read.  IT. By Stephen King.  A masterpiece.  If you only read one book this year, make it that one. 

I am Gordon of Grab This Book (http://grabthisbook.net)  I still read horror novels to break up my constant intake of crime thrillers and horror reviews do appear on my blog.  If you want a new horror recommendation then the best I have read recently is Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – that messed with my head…Beware the Witch. 

Whopping big thanks to Lainy, Helen and Gordon for sharing the memories of their first scary story

Hope they have whetted you appetite for a bit of horror.

Huge thanks to all the authors and bloggers who have taken part in this fun feature over summer.

I am sure that you have enjoyed reading these book memories as much as I have

 and hope they have sparked a few memories for you all too.


Happy Reading 



~***~

First Remembered Read ~ Historical Novel

Those of us who read, and who are influenced by books, tend to squirrel away our memories of all the stories we have read over the years. 

And yet, there is always that one special book tucked away in the far corner of your mind which reminds you just why you love reading so much…

During July and August I've invited a few friends to share their First Remembered Read..

I'm thrilled to welcome to Jaffareadstoo

Anne O'Brien, author of The Shadow Queen

The Passionate Brood by Margaret Campbell Barnes

As a young reader, in that difficult transition between child and adult - no YA in those days - I picked up a book in my local library called The Passionate Brood. It was the cover that took my eye: two knight jousting with all the colour of heraldry, of banners and pavilions and ladies watching their knights fight for the glory of victory in the tournament. I doubt it was very accurate but the image appealed. I also remember my mother looking askance at the title - we were far more innocent in those distant days - but the book came home with me.

It is a Plantagenet story of the family of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, particularly of King Richard I, packed with all the romantic elements of high chivalry. It is also unashamedly romantic in bringing Berengaria onto the scene, as well as the character of Robin Hood. And I loved it. The elegant style and marvellous detail brought these characters to life, even though they lived more than six hundred years ago. They were real and engaged my emotions, living with me in all their passion, their loyalties and betrayals, as I devoured the book. Their conversations drew me in to their joys and their sorrows. I wept with Berengaria when King Richard met his death at the end. 

At that time it did not matter to me that there was no evidence for the romance, or for these particular origins of Robin Hood. The world that The Passionate Brood opened for me was simply magical. It has never lost its fascination.

HQ
2017

Susan Grossey, author of Portraits of Pretence

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

I have no doubt at all that this book ignited my love of hiding away in the past, and I quickly graduated to Goudge’s historical fiction for adults – a full collection of which I was thrilled to find on my mother’s bookshelves. My mother died when I was ten, and having this shared love of a particular novelist means a great deal to me.

I re-read “The Little White Horse” every year, and also at times of stress as I find it reliably calming and reassuring. I made the mistake of recommending it to a book club, and they tore it to shreds, pointing out the clumsy religious imagery which had gone – indeed, still goes – right over my head. I learnt from this and have avoided both the “Moonacre” television series and the film “The Secret of Moonacre”, which are based on the novel, in case things are not as I have always pictured them in my imagination. I once saw a very handsome hardcover edition in a bookshop, but nothing would tempt me away from my much-sellotaped, worm-eaten little paperback.

CreateSpace
2017

Huge thanks to Anne and Susan for sharing the memories 

of their First Historical Read with me today.

Next week : My First Horror Novel

~***~

First Remembered Read ~ Romantic Novel

Those of us who read, and who are influenced by books, tend to squirrel away our memories of all the stories we have read over the years. 

And yet, there is always that one special book tucked away in the far corner of your mind which reminds you just why you love reading so much…

During July and August I've invited a few friends to share their First Remembered Read

I'm thrilled to welcome to Jaffareadstoo

Helena Fairfax, author of Felicity at the Cross Hotel

Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time – My First Romantic Read

by Helena Fairfax

When I was eleven I started my first year at a Catholic convent school. The convent was founded in the seventeenth century, at a time when Catholics were persecuted in this country. My school was in an old, rambling building, complete with a draughty chapel and a priests' hidey-hole. The nuns told us many harrowing stories of Catholic martyrdom, such as the death of Margaret Clitherow, who had hidden priests in her home and was executed in a horrific way. She was stripped and laid on a sharp rock. The door of her own house was laid on top of her, weighted with a great pile of rocks and stones, and she was crushed to death. It wasn't hard in that ancient school building to feel all the horror of this death, the paralysing fear of the Catholics, and the brutality of the time.

It was also at this time that I had to spend a couple of weeks off school with a severe throat infection. My dad was away, my other brothers and sisters were at school, and my mum had to go to work. I spent a lot of time alone, feeling feverish and sorry for myself. This was in the days before computers – before even daytime television – and there was nothing for me to do but read. Every day my mum would place a great pile of books by my bed, along with a large jug of juice to drink. One of the books she left me was A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley. I absolutely fell in love with this book. It was my first ever romantic read, and I still have my old copy.

A Traveller in Time tells the story of Penelope Taverner, who, like myself at the time, was a solitary and imaginative child, recovering from an illness. Penelope is sent to stay with relatives who live at Thackers – an old farm in Derbyshire which has been there for centuries. There is an absolutely lovely sense of place in this book – the descriptions of the old farm-house, the scent of herbs, the cosy kitchen, and all the old furnishings and artefacts that Penelope comes across already give the story a wonderfully romantic atmosphere. The real romance comes from the dual timeline. Penelope discovers she can travel back in time, to the sixteenth century and the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the home of the Babington family. The fictional Thackers is based on the real house of Dethick Manor, which once belonged to the Catholic Babingtons. Anthony Babington was involved in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth and place the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. He was executed, and his actions led to the later execution of Queen Mary.

With the stories of the nuns in my head, I could well imagine the terror Penelope feels, knowing what will happen to the Babingtons, and knowing she is powerless to change history. Penelope meets Francis Babington – the younger brother of Anthony – and as the story progresses, and Penelope grows older, she and Francis begin to fall in love. Their love for each other is beautifully drawn, and all the more moving because they both of them know it is doomed.

The book was first published in 1939. I re-read it recently and it is still a wonderful, enthralling, romantic and poignant read today. I passed the book on to my own daughter when she was a child, and she called the author "Alison Utterly Brilliant". :) I heartily agree!

Photo of Dethick Manor attribution: mickie collins
[CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Common

Author Biography:

Helena Fairfax is a British author who was born in Uganda and came to England as a child. She's grown used to the cold now which is just as well, since these days she lives in an old Victorian mill town in the north of England, right next door to the windswept Yorkshire moors. Helena walks this romantic landscape every day with her rescue dog, finding it the perfect place to dream up her heroes and her happy endings. Subscribers to Helena's newsletter receive news of free stuff, competitions with prizes, gossip, and links to cool websites she's been looking at when she should have been writing.

Amazon universal buy link for Felicity at the Cross Hotel: http://mybook.to/FelicityCH

Social Media Links :

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cR_m71 (all new subscribers receive a free novella)

Website: www.helenafairfax.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HelenaFairfax/

Twitter https://twitter.com/HelenaFairfax

Pinterest https://uk.pinterest.com/helenafairfax/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/helenafairfax/

Helena Fairfax
July 2017

Cassandra Grafton, author of A Quest for Mr Darcy

My First Romantic Novel

by Cassandra Grafton

Thank you, Jo and Jaffa, for this fun opportunity to share my thoughts on the first romance novel I ever read!

It was back in the summer of 1975, and I was thirteen years old. There was no Internet to search for recommendations of books to read. In general, you relied on local bookshop displays, the mobile library van or the compulsory reading on the school curriculum.

Across five years in grammar school, the latter focused very much on classic authors, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Brontës and Austen, and I had yet to discover them all as my second year at grammar school drew to a close.

Then, a class friend offered to lend me a novel she had just read. Her name was Janet Davies, and I can picture her clearly even though I haven’t seen her since I left the school in 1978.

Her mum was a big fan of a Mills & Boon author called Betty Neels and bought all her novels. The book Janet offered me was called Enchanting Samantha, and that was all I knew about it when I took it from her.

It turned out to be a sweet love story about an English nurse and a Dutch doctor, and I devoured it in one go, feeling by the end I had made a huge discovery.

I had all the typical awkwardness of a being a teenager, feeling plain and ordinary at the best of times, yet the heroine was someone I could instantly relate to.

Samantha wasn’t a glamorous or stunningly beautiful girl, she was, to quote from the novel, “a small, pleasantly plump figure, her cap perched very precisely on the top of her neatly piled brown hair, a frown marring a face, which, while by no means pretty, was pleasant enough, with hazel eyes fringed with short thick lashes, a nose turned up at its end and a mouth which though a little too large, could smile delightfully.”

I had brown hair, a by no means pretty but hopefully passable face, hazel eyes and though I avoided smiling much because of the braces on my teeth, I somehow felt an immediate connection with Samantha.

The story is gentle, and the barriers to a happy ending merely those of misunderstandings, but all the same, it whet my appetite. When school finally ended for the long summer holidays, Janet kindly handed over half a dozen other titles by the same author, and that was it - my long love affair with romance novels had begun!

Over time, I collected all of Betty Neels’ books, browsing jumble sales, second-hand book stalls and then, when I had more money to spend, buying brand new stories as they were released. I took them all away to college with me, frequently re-reading my favourites, but later, with a growing family and a lack of space, the books ended up in storage.

Betty Neels began to write in 1969, after retiring from many years in the nursing profession (she had married her own Dutch doctor - a common theme in her books!) The story goes that she was in the library one day and heard a lady complaining about the lack of good romance novels, so decided to write one of her own! In the end, she penned 134 of them for Mills & Boon!

Did Enchanting Samantha remain my all-time favourite Betty Neels novel? No, it was soon superseded by several others, but I will always retain a fondness for the book that introduced me to romance novels, and I still have a copy up in the attic.

Enchanting Samantha was first published in 1973. It has been re-issued with various covers over the last few decades, but my original dog-eared copy looks pretty much like this one!

Mills and Boon

 

 

Co-author with Ada Bright of The Particular Charm of Miss Jane Austen
Author of the A Fair Prospect trilogy
Author of A Quest for Mr Darcy
Co-author of The Darcy Brothers

Visit me:

Our Blog: Tabby Cow

My Website: Cass Grafton

CreateSpace Indepenent Publishing Platform
July 2017

Huge thanks to Helena and Cassandra for sharing the memories 

of their First Romantic Read with me today.

Next week : My First Historical Read

First Remembered Read ~ Grown Up Story

Those of us who read, and who are influenced by books, tend to squirrel away our memories of all the stories we have read over the years. 

And yet, there is always that one special book tucked away in the far corner of your mind which reminds you just why you love reading so much…

During July and August I've invited a few friends to share their First Remembered Read

I'm thrilled to welcome to Jaffareadstoo

Emma Curtis, author of One Little Mistake

The books that haunt me, those whose impression on my soul I can still feel, are the ones I was given to read by my mother, between the ages of twelve and fifteen, after which I unfortunately decided she knew nothing and stopped listening to her.

I don’t remember the plots of all of them, but the feelings I had, the total immersion, the sense of awe, are still there. These are the books that, whenever I’m reminded of them, still give me that frisson. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster, Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge, For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, The Go-Between, by LP Hartley, Ayesha (She) by H Rider Haggard, Bhowani Junction by John Masters and of course Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice; they all echo through my mind, as part of my coming of age.

  

We didn’t have Young Adult novels in the Seventies and so I skipped straight from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe into these incredible, eye-opening worlds. Once I found them, my mother’s bookshelves became both a treasure trove and an escape. Unhealthily ignorant about sex and boys and finding friendship problematic, they were my education and salvation. Mr Rochester, Maxine de Winter, Fabrice de Sauveterre and Mr Darcy stood in for boyfriends. Wonderful unforgettable books read at exactly the right time.

Published in paperback 15th June 2017
 Black Swan

Katherine Sunderland from the Bibliomaniac Book Blog and her website bibliomanic.co.uk

It might not have been my very first grown up read but "HomeComing" by Cynthia Voigt is definitely the first book I read that showed me the power a story can have on you. It was the first book which made me think 'What would I do if it were me?' and the first novel which provoked a whole range of emotions and made me feel real empathy towards a character.

Homecoming is about 4 siblings who are abandoned by their mother in a car park and have to find their way from Connecticut to Bridgeport and their only other living relative. The eldest, Dicey, is only about 13 and she takes responsibility for all her younger siblings, doing her best to feed, clean and protect them as they set of on their long journey on foot with only a few dollars.

I read it when I was 11 or 12 and the premise of 4 children being left in a car park by their mother with no food, no money and no explanation really caught my imagination. Up until this point I had probably read far too many Sweet Valley High novels so this book was refreshingly realistic and gritty. Dicey is a fantastic heroine who is quick thinking, inventive, caring, brave, resourceful and self sacrificing. I fell in love with her and have remained so until this day!

Homecoming explores issues of mental health, dysfunctional families and risk, but is also a story about perseverance, belief and love. It was the first book that made me think about themes, ideas, observations and situations that challenged me as well as being intriguing. It was the first book that I wanted to discuss with someone. I think also the main character was not far off my age and like no one I had met before. I wanted to be her friend and Homecoming was one of the first books I really "lived" in. 

I reread it two years ago and still loved it. I was able to finish the sentences and quote chunks without even realising I knew the text so well - especially as it's about 30 years since I last read it! Homecoming was first published in 1981 and it's fascinating to read a book where technology doesn't exist - these children have to use a real map, can't phone ahead or text and can't use google when they face some obstacles. This time I realised how much more the role of the mother and her mental state of mind was written about in the novel and I still wanted to sit down and talk to someone all about it when I finished the last page!

One last thing? I have a few copies of Homecoming but my first one is over 400 pages and with very small print. My parents had offered to buy me one book to take on holiday and so I searched out the longest, with the most pages and the smallest print because I wanted to get my money's worth. I was only getting one book and it was going to have to last a whole week. And with so many pages, it had to be a really 'grown up' book!

So Homecoming not only defines a move to more lengthy and grown up style of novels, a different way of reading a book and relating to a story, but also a book that filled my summer and my imagination. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend it.

G K Holloway, author of 1066: What Fates Imposed

If I tell you, in the opening line of this novel, ‘the clocks were striking thirteen,’ you’ll know exactly which book I mean.

I’d just left school and before I started college, the summer months stretched out ahead of me. I needed something to read. This was in the days when Penguin Books had their own shelves in book stores. So, I went to my local bookshop and, knowing there would be something good to read, browsed the Penguin Modern Classics. There it was, 1984.  

Penguin 

I started reading it when I got home and the first line pulled me in immediately. This was early Saturday evening. By the same time the next day I’d finished, and I’m not a fast reader. I’d been lost in another, dystopian, world. One that might one day become a reality

The book introduced me, and the world, to new words and phrases in the English language; Doublethink, which enabled a person to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time and the slogans; War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.  I became familiar with the Ministries of Love, Peace, Plenty and Truth, responsible respectively for, misery, fear suffering and torture; the armed forces; rationing of food and supplies; and falsification of historical events.  Orwell’s novel also introduced me to a mild feeling of paranoia.

More than anything, this book hit the politics button buried deep inside my head and I don’t think I’ve been the same since.  I look at the world now and it seems to be more than a TV set in the corner that takes note of your interests and affiliations – all for the greater good?

I went on to read all of Orwell’s books, including his essays, and always found them pertinent and perceptive.

So, now you’ve read this, switch on your television and watch the news. Oh, and behave, Big Brother might be watching you.  

Matador
2013

Huge thanks to Emma, Katherine and Glynn for sharing the memories 

of their First Grown Up read with me today.

Next week : My First Romantic Read

First Remembered Read ~ Shakespeare

Those of us who read, and who are influenced by books, tend to squirrel away our memories of all the stories we have read over the years. 

And yet, there is always that one special book tucked away in the far corner of your mind which reminds you just why you love reading so much…

During July and August I've invited a few friends to share their First Remembered Read

My First Remembered ~ Shakespeare

I'm thrilled to welcome


Anne Stormont, author of Displacement

By the time I started high school at Leith Academy in Edinburgh in 1968, I was already a keen reader and a bit of a writer too. I'd also had parts in several plays written by my maternal grandmother for the local children's drama group. So as well as writing stories for my younger sisters, I also liked writing plays for me and my friends to act out. Sometimes the plays were completely my own work, other times I'd dramatise part of a book I was reading.

But I'd never heard of William Shakespeare until my first-year English teacher introduced him to the class when she handed us out copies of The Merchant of Venice. Our teacher, Mrs Harkness, was blonde, glamorous, strict and all-round awesome. She was passionate about all aspects of literature, but most especially about the work of Shakespeare.

CAMBRIDGE EDITION
1968

Mrs Harkness taught us about Shakespeare, about who he was, about the Elizabethan times in which he lived and wrote, and about how his plays would have been staged at Stratford.

And in order to study the play, we didn't just passively listen to the play being read out. Oh no, we were assigned parts, and we read those parts out loud, getting a feel for the language and meaning of the script, and stopping from time to time to discuss what we thought was going on.

The Merchant of Venice is classified as a comedy, but I remember it as more witty than comic.

It has love and romance, but it also has darker themes of bigotry, anti-semitism, sexism and injustice, and there is much suspense and intrigue. The story centres around Bassanio and his wooing of Portia. He borrows money from his friend, Antonio (who is the Merchant of Venice) to help with his wooing, but Antonio in turn has to borrow that money in order to lend it.

But when the time comes to repay the loan to its provider, the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, Antonio is unable to do so and Shylock therefore demands the agree bond of a pound of Antonio's flesh. And when Shylock takes Antonio to court over the unpaid bond, it is Portia who acts ( in disguise as a man) as Antonio's defence lawyer. None of the men come out of it all particularly well and it is Portia who cleverly brings proceedings to a satisfactory conclusion.

Sometimes, as the class read the play, I was assigned the part of Portia. I loved Portia.

There is a fairy tale quality to the sections in the play that deal with Portia's suitors as they try to win her affection, but Portia is no passive Sleeping Beauty. Yes, Portia is wealthy and beautiful, but she's also clever and resourceful. Her speeches, such as the one on the quality of mercy, (which I can still recite nearly 50 years on) are stunning.

This introduction to Shakespeare made quite an impression on me. It was an ideal play at an ideal time. Portia was a role model who not only helped me stand up to classroom bullies, but who also showed me that it's possible to be assertive without being aggressive – and that women are way smarter than men.

Rowan Russell Books
2014

Kate Dunn, author of The Dragonfly

Shakespeare is in my blood - almost literally: my great-grandparents were leading Shakespearean actors during the Edwardian era and are commemorated in the Benson memorial window in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon, so I pretty much drank him in with my mother's milk when I was tiny. She even used quotes from Shakespeare to tell me off with : 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have an idle daughter,' she'd wail when I hadn't tidied my room.

The first play I remember reading was The Merchant of Venice - we acted out selected scenes when I was in the second year at school and I played the Prince of Aragon - I could probably still recite great chunks of it now, if you asked me nicely! Although it technically counts as My First Shakespeare, it isn't my favourite, nor is it one that has influenced me much. I'm a fanatical book-lover and collector - ask my husband - but the Shakespeares that have meant the most to me are probably ones I have seen. When I was eleven, in the space of two short weeks my mum took me to see two seminal productions: Ian McKellen as Hamlet was the first Shakespearean tragedy I ever saw and the legendary director Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first comedy. Both of them, in their different ways, were transfiguring experiences: the written word, spoken, resonating in my head and heart and virtually every other vital organ. I devoured Shakespeare after that, on the page and in performance - oh brave new world that hath such people in it! My first job was as an usherette at the RSC and I watched the History plays night after night after night, dazzled, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I still feel he is in the marrow of my bones.

  

The first Shakespeare I'd grab from a burning building? 

A copy of Twelfth Night my grandmother gave me. She was a leading lady at the Old Vic Theatre in London during the 1930s and played Viola in a production by Lilian Baylis - another theatrical giant. The copy my granny gave me still has her moves written in pencil in the margin. She handed it on to me when she was too old and frail to write anything other than 'My lovely Kate' in shaky letters on the fly leaf.

That's my first Shakespeare.

Aurora Metro Publishers
2017

Huge thanks to Anne and Kate for sharing the memories 

of their First Shakespeare with us today.


Next week : My First Grown Up Story