From time to time newspapers invite writers to describe the ‘books that changed my life’. The resulting columns too often dazzle the reader with a display of erudition or passion, rather than tell the more mundane truth. The mundane truth is that our dispositions and the courses of our lives tend to be fixed before our ages run to two digits: a time when we were unlikely to be tackling Proust, understanding Nietzsche or appreciating C.P. Cavafy. The child being father to the man, we should be looking at fairy tales, picture books and First Readers if we seek the truly formative influence of literature. Foreign and war correspondents or derring-do travel writers are less likely to have been set upon their life’s path by Wilfred Thesiger, T.E. Lawrence or Eric Newby than by Enid Blyton’s Five Get into Trouble.
From almost the moment I could I read voraciously: everything, anything I could get my hands on. Then, at around 14, I stopped (I don’t know why) and never properly resumed the habit. My real literary influences, therefore, come from the early years and pre-adolescence, all seen and read through the eyes of a child.
Two books made me the Conservative I was to became, one at the age of about six, and the other as a nine-year-old.
Pookie Puts the World Right by Ivy Wallace, first published in 1945, was my favourite book at the age of about six. It’s one of a series of Pookie books, all sensationally illustrated with vivid, whole-page colour pictures: a series largely forgotten now. Pookie was a winged rabbit, cared for by Belinda, a ragged girl who lived alone in a cosy cabin house in a forest. That’s the reason, incidentally, why my youngest sister, Belinda, bears the name: Mum asked for suggestions.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in