A Couple Of Memorable School Books

I can recall two memorable books from school [apart from set books for examinations] namely: The Water Babies and Hereward The Wake. The former would have been told to us wide eyed kids at New Brancepeth primary or junior school, and the latter at Ushaw Moor County.

Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies was very popular in Victorian times and I hazard a guess that it was read to us because it taught aspects of morality when we were at a very impressionable age. I guess most of you will be familiar with the story: young Tom was a chimney sweep employed by Mr Grimes a horrible bully. Tom falls down a chimney, is chased out of the house  and finds himself falling into a river. It is at that point that the imagination can expand; he becomes a water baby in a magical river underworld. I recall being entranced when it was read out.

The big thing I recall about Hereward the Wake is that I was told that this Anglo Saxon leader never fell asleep in his quest to get one over on the Normans, hence the Wake part of his name. I now understand that it is much more likely that he was given the name Wake by the Norman land owning Wake family in order to legitimise their claim on his land! I suppose I must have been about nine when I first heard this tale  [possibly from one of our teaches - Mr Spence is in the frame].        

WB