Fifty five years a reader... part 2

So where then after Biggles and Blyton? The first real adult literature I read was Wuthering Heights, one rainy Saturday afternoon when I was sixteen. So there is a long long gap in which I had to satisfy my voracious reading appetite. I did reread a lot - I had to - I would read all the books in the school even though I had been allowed to go and help chose the books from the library bus that came round. Of course I joined the library - that first trip there, getting my junior library ticket,  going into the small room that served for children's books. That access was magical, truly magical, but I lacked guidance in what to read as my mum's tastes weren't really mine. At the time I found Pooh Bear a bit simplistic and frankly weird, Wind in the Willows I only came to appreciate later. Of course I was read to as a child, but I cannot remember a single story or book that I was read. The only memory of reading with my mother I can access is being in front of the fire with the Jack and Jill comic, colouring in the dots. But comics! Of course comics - loyal to Valiant mostly, while my brother had Buster, but with occasional frays into The Eagle, Boy's World the Beano, a faintly scurrilous funny called Wham and at the other end of the spectrum Look and Learn. Always torn by Look and Learn - it had enough text to actually give me more than a few minutes reading - even then I read very fast, but it only had one comic strip and it was often a bit dull.  Valiant was my favourite - the stories and story-lines were exactly tuned to my sensibilities - Captain Hurricane - the obligatory 2nd World War hero, Legg's Eleven - a terrific football serial, The Wild Twins, and a text only story about a man with X-ray eyes. They came every Monday, early, and I would read the entire comic cover to cover before breakfast.

But books.. I picked out The Hobbit from the library early on, probably when I was about seven years old, because of its fairy tale cover and description - I had no idea who Tolkien was, no idea it was a famous book. It was strange disturbing reading, the dwarves and Bilbo himself seemed amoral, they weren't "good" characters at all, not even particularly nice characters. Mirkwood scared me to death, and I took the book back the first time without having got any further, but like a persistent itch I need to know what happened, so I got it out again - but failed once more to make it through Mirkwood - it took a third attempt, probably a year or so later, maybe more, to actually finish it.