Would you like anything to read?

 

One of my favourites short stories at this time of year is ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ by Dylan Thomas.

It was dramatised on the BBC many years ago, but you can’t beat the words in all of their evocative power.

The late Harry Secombe grew up in Swansea and said that Dylan Thomas had captured the essence of fragmented childhood memories and a special moment of that era in Swansea between the wars perfectly.

A world without TV and multimedia where you had to make your own entertainment and music and family and neighbours were all that you had – and the worst you feared as a child were the ghosts created by your own powerful imagination and story telling late at night.

‘Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked. ‘

To all those striving to write with that power I wish you a peaceful, healthy and happy holiday.

4 thoughts on “Would you like anything to read?

  1. I love the thought of telling ghost stories by the fire. I’m going to sit by my fire for the next couple of days and make the most of having time to read and do very little else.

    Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.x

  2. Tales told by the fire – for Christmas, has to be ghost stories, I think. MR James,Edith Nesbitt, Elizabeth Bowen…

    (Christmas. A whole afternoon to read. And I’m pretty sure Santa has bought me the Kevin McCloud Grand Tour book, because he knows how much I love architecture…)

    Have a great Christmas, Nina!

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