AD Hartley

I previously wrote a post about the books I remember reading as a very young lad , from nursery age through to pre-secondary school. Re-reading this post recently I started thinking about what were the next steps in my reading education as a child.  By the time I was ten I was reading quite a few adventure books aimed at young readers, many based on World War Two, which even in the 80s was a huge cultural reference point. I was also a fan of the  Choose Your Own Adventure series, which were very popular at the time. (Do they still print those?). Others I remember specifically were The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, which was later made into a wonderful animated film called The Iron Giant;  as well as  Stig of the Dump by Clive King and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, both due in part to the wonderful TV series which were broadcast in the mid-80s. But eventually, of course, the world of adult literature is forced upon you, usually at school. ...

I was thinking about my old walk to school earlier this morning, prompted by half an hour of horn honking from just down the road. The large school next to us causes loud fume-filled chaos every morning, blocking the roads in the entire neighbourhood for an hour and a half due to the persistent need of the parents to drive their children to school and drop them within millimetres of the entrance despite most living within a 3 km radius. I'm never quite sure why the parents do this because they end up stuck in the jam they create just as much as the poor commuters trying to get to work and ending up stuck behind giant SUVs instead, normally with one lone child rolling around on the back seat like a marble in a crate. I'm sure the kids would much rather walk to school. I walked past two parents not so long ago who, having dropped off their child, were now chatting away whilst double parked on the already small road making the whole jam even worse. One w...