So, do I remember my favourite book from childhood? Not really, but the question provoked me to consider what books I read as a child.
I do remember the Dandy and Beano annuals around the house. Mine was the Beano. Comics were a large part of our childhood. Whizzer and Chips became my favourite after I grew tired of the Beano.
And we had Ladybird nursery rhyme books. I bought some of them again on eBay some years ago. There’s something very magical about nursery rhymes. I’ve never been big into poetry apart from these, although I do cherish song lyrics and hymn lyrics.
I read quite a few William and Jennings books too. I used to borrow them from the local library. In later years, William became a popular TV series; Just William.
We had an American Roman Catholic Family Bible. I don’t remember reading it as a very young child, but I do remember looking at the pictures. It had pictures of Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops, but the one picture that I remember was Daniel in the Lion’s Den.
It might have been this painting. If not, it was very similar. It’s funny how, as kids, we were so interested in the scariest Bible stories. I loved the Ten Commandments film too. It was a 1956 film, but I saw it in the Pavilion cinema in Cork, Ireland in 1972, around the same time that I first saw Ben Hur.
Daniel features in quite a few songs. Here are a couple of examples:
Finally, here’s one I still have. I got it at Christmas 1972. Not sure why I kept it. It was a little encyclopaedia. I was particularly impressed with a section on the future. The futuristic cars looked like they could fly, though they didn’t depict them as flying. I fear that I won’t live to see flying cars though 😀. Maybe we’ll have them in Heaven.
Hibernia Gospel 