Thursday, June 18, 2020

Jennings Follows A Clue

The rain had not abated all day. I was trapped indoors and didn’t know what to do with myself. “I ought to write a blog to pass the time”, I thought to myself. I didn’t know what to write about though. Looking on my bookshelves for inspiration my eyes alighted on Jennings Follows A Clue by Anthony Buckeridge. It is a first edition complete with dust jacket and published in 1951. One of my favourite books. Why is it so special? Well, my sister Margaret gave it to me as a birthday present on my 50th birthday in 2001. It was published the year I was born in 1951 and Margaret knew that when I was a kid I was addicted to the Jennings books. A few weeks ago some Facebook friends were nominating each other to name their favourite books. I was itching to be nominated so that I could show off my book knowledge, but nobody nominated me, much to my chagrin. I would certainly have included a Jennings book along with Black Beauty, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island as my favourite childhood books.

Jennings Follows A Clue was the second in the series of Jennings books. The first was Jennings Goes To School published in 1950. The books follow the adventures of Jennings and his short-sighted friend Darbishire at Linbury Court School. All the characters are only known by their surnames, as was the custom at British boy’s schools. There was a whole supporting cast of minor characters such as Temple, Venables, Binns, Blotwell, Atkinson and Bromwich (Major). The teachers were gruff Mr Wilkins, kindly Mr Carter and the headmaster known as the ‘Arch Beako’. Then there was Matron and many other characters. Flicking through the book this afternoon all the schoolboy slang terms came back to me. For example, if you made a mistake it was a ‘bish’, anything unpleasant was ‘ozard’. If Mr Wilkins was angry he was ozard, if he was really angry he was ‘ozard squared’ and if he was absolutely furious he was ‘ozard cubed’. Jennings was always getting Darbishire into all sorts of scrapes, such as when they found an old wheel with 2000BC written on it. Thinking they had found an ancient artifact they pushed it back to school only to find that BC stood for Borough Council.










Anthony Buckeridge died in 2004 aged 92, but his books were enjoyed by thousands of children and he educated them at the same time. I found out one very interesting fact today. When I looked on Wikipedia for info about Jennings I discovered that the Jennings books were serialised on Children’s Hour on BBC radio in 1958. Jennings was played by a child actor called John Mitchell who became famous in the 60’s as Mitch Mitchell drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. You learn something new every day!














Tuesday, June 16, 2020

The Mystery Of The House Without Windows.

I have always been interested in stories about people who disappeared without trace. Five years ago, I wrote a piece about Connie Converse who is regarded as the first ever female singer-songwriter of the modern era. In 1974 she packed her belongings into her Volkswagen car and drove away, never to be seen again. I called that story How Sad, How Lovely after the title of her album. You can read that story below if you want.
Recently I stumbled across the story of another talented person who also disappeared in mysterious circumstances, the writer Barbara Newhall Follett. She was born in 1914 in New Hampshire USA. Her father was Wilson Follett who was a noted writer and teacher. Her mother was a writer of children’s stories. She was a precocious child who started writing poetry at the age of four and even invented her own language which she called Farksoo. She also had a huge interest in nature and the outdoors. At age eight she began work on her first novel which became The House Without Windows. The first manuscript which she presented to her mother was destroyed in a house fire. She painstakingly rewrote it and expanded it and with the help of her father the book was published in 1927 when she was only 12 years old. She was hailed as a child genius and the book received rave reviews from people such as Eleanor Farjeon who wrote the song Morning Has Broken. She was interviewed on the radio and asked to review other books. Her future seemed assured.


Barbara also had a great interest in the sea and sailing. In order to write about it she wanted to experience it for herself. Her parents allowed her to join the crew of a schooner as a ‘cabin boy’ on a voyage to Nova Scotia. She was only thirteen years of age. Her book based on that voyage The Voyage Of The Norman D was published in 1928 also to critical acclaim. Sadly, that year her life turned upside down. Her father abandoned his wife and children and went off with another woman. She found that experience quite devastating. The great depression began, and she was reduced to doing secretarial work to help support her mother and siblings. She did write other manuscripts, but they remained unpublished during her lifetime.
In 1931 she met a man called Nickerson Rogers. The following year they walked along the Appalachian Trail and then sailed to Spain and spent time walking through Europe. I think if she had been born 30 years later then she would have been described as having a hippy existence. They returned to USA and settled in Brookline Massachusetts and married in 1934. Sadly, it was not a happy marriage. Barbara became depressed and convinced that her husband was being unfaithful to her. According to her husband Barbara left the house on December 7th, 1939. She had $30 in her pocket which was about $500 in today's money. At only 25 years old she was never seen again. Her husband did not inform the police for two weeks. Four months later he requested that a missing persons bulletin be issued. It was in the name Barbara Rogers, so nobody knew it was the famous writer who had disappeared until 1966. Her mother became suspicious when she discovered what little effort Nickerson had made to find his wife and accused him of having something to hide. Sadly, she went to her grave never knowing what fate had befallen her daughter. No body was ever found nor any evidence suggesting foul play.


I decided that I ought to see if I could find a rare book by Barbara Newhall Follett, So I googled ‘Barbara Newhall Follett Signed Copy’. I didn’t find a book signed by her, but I was amazed to find that a new illustrated edition of The House Without Windows had been published in the UK only last year 2019 and copies were  available signed by the illustrator Jackie Morris. My copy arrived last Saturday. It is a very attractive book and there is an introduction by Jackie Morris. Unfortunately for me, unlike the album by Connie Converse which I really enjoyed listening to, this book is not my thing at all. It is like a children’s fairy tale. It is about this girl called Eepersip who runs away from home to live in in the woods and eventually turns into a wood nymph. It is a children’s book meant for children. I expect I will resell it when I get back into my book dealing again. Nevertheless, I found the story of Barbara Newhall Follett quite fascinating. It is a shame that her disappearance wasn’t investigated more thoroughly at the time. In this modern age with all the advances with DNA I wonder if the mystery could still be solved when some shallow grave is found and reveals its dark secrets.





Monday, June 15, 2020

The Disappearance Of Connie Converse.

The story of Connie Converse is one of the saddest in the history of music. Over 40 years after she disappeared music fans around the world are beginning to realize her importance in the history of modern music. In the summer of 1974 she wrote farewell letters to family and friends saying that she was leaving to start a new life. She waited for the news that Nixon was finally resigning as President and then packed her belongings in her Volkswagen Beetle and drove away, never to be seen again. So who is or was Connie Converse and why is she so important?. She is important because she was years or decades ahead of her time. Connie Converse was the first ever in the genre of female singer-songwriter and she left a small but brilliant legacy of music behind.

                                                                           I had never heard of Connie until a couple of weeks ago. I discovered her music purely by chance on the same day I found Sibylle Baier on Youtube. I was looking for a song by Anne Briggs at the time. I stumbled across Connie and listened to one song which aroused my interest and I ordered a CD called How Sad, How Lovely which is the title of one of her songs. The package arrived today, and I must say it is a most attractively designed album as well. It contains a nice booklet which includes contributions from her brother and also the man who first recorded her songs.
I'll just tell you briefly what I know about Connie. She was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in 1924 in  New Hampshire into a strict Baptist family. At School she was quite brilliant and won a scholarship to Mount Holyoake College, but dropped out after two years and moved to New York City where she lived in Greenwich Village which was the centre of the Bohemian world in 1950's America. It was here that she acquired the nick-name Connie because she came from Concord.  It was at this time that Connie first began to write poems and songs and accompanying herself on guitar. She came to the attention of Gene Deitch a famous animator who recorded Connie's songs at his home in the mid-50's. She failed to attract any commercial interest apart from one appearance on a TV Show presented by Walter Cronkite. In 1961 the year that Bob Dylan arrived in New York she left Greenwich Village and moved to Ann Arbor Michigan. I think that was a shame because a year later the whole world was following the Folk Scene in New York and she could have been part of it and got the attention her music deserved. Over a decade after she dropped out of college Connie returned to academic life and worked her way up to being Managing Editor of 'The Journal Of Conflict Resolution'. Her only music interest was playing for family & friends. By the early 1970's she was suffering with depression and her employer and friends pooled together to send her on a six month sabbatical to England. Connie described this trip as one of the only times in her life she was allowed to have 'unproductive fun'. I wonder where she went in this country and who she met?. Finally in 1974 she made her decision to disappear.

                                                                           After I had read the booklet I played the CD and I must say now after listening to it twice I am very impressed indeed. Nine of the eighteen tracks are the recordings she made with Gene Deitch and you can hear little snippets of conversation between the songs. Connie sings in a very formal style. This is the 1950's you must remember, before singers started slurring the words and calling everyone Babe. It is the subject matter of hanging around in bars, playing poker, and being taken home by strangers that makes the songs ahead of their time. White middle-class women didn't sing about these subjects before. Although a lot of the songs sound quite jolly you can sense an underlying sadness below. There is no other singer like Connie Converse. Just on a couple of songs I could hear vague echoes of Dory Previn, another great singer who came along a lot later who I really like as well. A lot of the songs began life as poems and you can hear that in the very poetic imagery of a lot of the songs. I'll have put one song below so you can judge for yourself.

                                                                           There is some sort of a happy ending to the story because in 2004 Gene Deitch who had recorded Connie 50 years before was invited onto a radio show. He played one of her songs. Two listeners of the show Dan Dzula and David Herman were inspired to track down her recordings. Gene Deitch was happy to collaborate. Also, they found a filing cabinet at Connie's brother's house containing further treasures which Connie had left with him, all neatly filed and labelled as if she meant them to be found. The album which I received today was finally released. The legend of Connie Converse is finally beginning to grow.

What actually happened to her? If Connie was still alive today which is very unlikely she would be now 91. I find it hard to believe that she took her own life. If that was true why did she pack her car so meticulously?. I have wondered if she returned to England where she spent a happy six months. We shall probably never know but I am really pleased that her music is finally after 50 years getting the recognition that it deserves.

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