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Alfred: You can get 2 more years of cover for just £49.99 extra Guthrum: Er, no. I'll be OK I think, thanks. |
After yesterday's heavy seriousness, here's a little trip down Nostalgia Lane. In Leamington Spa Oxfam Bookshop I came across this gem. I've been searching for it in second-hand shops for years. It was one of the first two books on 'Dark Age' history I ever owned - although mine was a very old edition with separate dust-jacket - but I lost it long ago. Now, for the princely sum of £3.49 (a 2,629% increase, no less, on its marked price of 12 1/2 p or 2 shillings and sixpence) I own a copy again.
I love L. Du Garde Peach's 'Adventures from History' volumes (especially when, as here, illustrated by John Kenney); certainly they played a huge part in making me a historian. This had a role in drawing me towards what I later found out was called early medieval history. Du Garde Peach had a PhD and a DLitt. I wonder what it was in. [Update: apparently it was in the relations between English, French and Spanish Drama in the 17th century. He began his career as a humorist for radio, it seems. Thanks to Dave Petts and Katherine Lewis for this info.!]
Here are the closing words (written in 1956, only a decade or so after the end of the war, which I think goes some way towards explaining the tone!):
'So England became a free country and we should always remember that it might have been very much less free if Alfred the Great had not lived and ruled, a thousand years ago.'
Hurrah! It's enough to bring a tear of pride to the eye of any member of ASNAC! Well, maybe not the ones who work on Norse, I suppose.
