getting all wired up

h.e. bates. i wondered, as i was slowly making my way through LOVE FOR LYDIA, whether it was the DARLING BUDS OF MAY guy i was reading in high school. my high school english teacher was a peculiar one. i loved her dearly and i suppose she encouraged, perhaps even ignited my love for anything english. whenever she would scold anyone of us, she did it humorously : 'shame on you, and on ALL of your grandchildren'. a fifteen year old doesn't exactly dream about that yet. apart from half of the classroom cracking up, i felt she was odd.
when said teacher complimented us, she did it with style and purpose. she would pad us on the shoulder, shoving one or other novel under our noses. at exactly such a time she must have dropped FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR FRANCE in my lap, a novel i really took everywhere. reading it, while walking the pavement, for instance. strange, i have not done it since.


LOVE FOR LYDIA is seventies slow and has a bunch of actors in it, at the off set of their acting career, a.o. jeremy irons. the BBC series feels a little worn, probably because of the time (past). here's a young narrator falling for lydia, while lydia does her utmost best to make ALL of the village lads fall for her, which complicates things (and makes the story of course). deriving from the semi-autobiographical note attached to LOVE FOR LYDIA, bates wasn't all that humourous, but certainly psychologically insightful.
anyway. i crocheted me a good handful of new hearts, so THE WIRE, season 5 can slip in through the back door. son and i will be sitting next to one another on the couch again. ☻

4 comments:

  1. Oh, darling, Nadine,
    they spend not much time in front of TVs in that time, don't they, but they haven't such quantity as today... its so very sloooowly that I can't believe they not fallen asleep - but now: I've got time enough to look at the features... very well composed.
    A pity but I can't open the WIRE...
    Have a look at Brideshead Revisited: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-nxgiSWzw&feature=related
    I've suck it in 1981... delicious!
    x Ariane.
    P.S. I just begun with the same book you read!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My Gosh, look at how young Jeremy Irons looks. I love him almost as much as Ralph Fiennes, Kers! Did you ever see Jeremy in Damage? I watched it with KennyRLABTPSWW years ago! I loved it...it disturbed him! I called it DamAUGE...Think it sounds so much better.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have to read H. E. Bates for sure. I feel ashamed I haven't read any.

    ReplyDelete
  4. that was a good teacher. they're rare nowadays, they lack both purpose and style, and above all motivation and salary, at least in this country.

    ReplyDelete