Opening Books and late night visitations...

An room in my interior was opened to me the other day. One which I haven't visited for many years, and which brought very strong memories back.

It was my great grandmother, a shadowy figure in my past, who let her husband died, moved her gardener in with her, and cut my father out of her will. I remember her as a frail figure behind a net curtain, and the ornate carved mirror that she carved herself which hangs in my parents house-My dad had to go and buy it at the auction.

But it is the books that I remember her for; ancient family bibles, and books by a range of authors 13 year old had never heard of then, and still don't much now; Edward Bulwer Lytton's ghost stories, Sax Rohmer, Leslie Charteris, and a strange book about a man called Alistair Crowley-I never asked my parents who he was....

My father bought them at the auction too, and I immediately commandeered them and stored them in my bedroom, which then was in the attic space; an iron bedstead with rough pitch pine beams, the ceiling following the line of the roof, and a steep wooden staircase leading from the floor below.

The books were written in; along the margin, above the lines; strange gleanings. As I read the book, the writings slowly revealing the wanderings of an elderly lady. She bega to inhabit my space there, showing me writings, and observations that never made complete sense, but sparked a constant wish to know her more, and as they did we began a friendship which has probably shaped my life more than I know.

As I read more, I had more and more a sense of the shadowy figure, who was on the face devoutly religous, but underneath had a flirting fascination with spirits, and the occult, a woman who wore black lace, who had antimacassars and Staffordshire figurines and who carved ornate mirrors with strange figures around it..



So there I was, late in the night in the attic with my valve radio and John Peel, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and my Great grand mother learning about the world we live in, I wish I had known her when she was alive, but then I might have agained a different view of her...not sure if I would have wanted that.....