On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:14:57 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:

On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:09:04 +0100, Mike Lyle
wrote:



I remember the ever-patriotic C.E.Lucas Phillips writing, in _The Small Garden_, you
can buy special seed for courgettes, but the ones from English marrows "are tastier."

Great little book, that. My first gardening book. Still on my shelf,
if a little worn and dog-eared now. Had to reinforce the spine and
re-glue the cover a few years ago, but still used occasionally. S/H
copies widely available.

I learned more from it than any other source. I wonder if I've still
got the shreds of my copy...
(He also wrote 'Cockleshell Heroes' BTW, the
story of the commando raid on shipping in Bordeaux using canvas canoes
in 1942).

We had that as "dorm book" at school. (I remember when the spare
canoes were sold in the _Exchange and Mart_ along with those folding
bikes on which the Paras had been intended to terrify the Hun.) On
reflection, it's rather disturbing that violence was the major subject
of our literacy in those days: English history, French Revolution, US
Civil War, Caesar's campaigns, the Greek-Persian Wars, etc during the
day, then Dam Busters, Popski, and the rest to soothe us to our
innocent rest. No wonder they gave us chapel twice a day: without
these brief inputs from the Prince of Peace, even more of us would
have ended up as psychopaths.

--
Mike.