The Scrivener: Mental Magpie Nests
…She brought an ash-tray to her table. None of that hypocritical talk about cigarette smoke while sitting at a pavement café, with dozens of vehicles pumping out ghastly gases in the adjacent car-park. Anyway, we quickly got chatting about publishers, books, writers and bookshops….
A chance encounter over a cup of coffee can result in a conversation which makes for the best hour of the day, as Brian Barratt reveals.
Lucky are those who meet Brian, a natural-born conversationalist in the Johnson tradition, whose words are always worthwhile. Lucky too are those who read his wonderful columns. Please do click on The Scrivener in the menu on this page to sample them.
For further mental stimulation take a look at Brian’s Web site, The Brain Rumager www.alphalink.com.au/~umbidas/
We had to shuffle the chairs a bit so that she could sit at the table behind me. She had an old paperback novel, ready to read while she drank her coffee. The colophon on its spine looked like UTP, so I asked if it was a University Tutorial Press publication. No, it wasn't. It was a University book published forty years ago by Methuen. Alas, some of those old publishers and their imprints have long since been swallowed by giants.
She brought an ash-tray to her table. None of that hypocritical talk about cigarette smoke while sitting at a pavement café, with dozens of vehicles pumping out ghastly gases in the adjacent car-park. Anyway, we quickly got chatting about publishers, books, writers and bookshops.
For instance, there's something serendipitous about the tables outside the newsagent's shop round the corner. They have the usual remaindered publishing failures. You know the sort of thing — Catalonian cookery, Pope picking, toilet training, star signs. And, just when you need something worthwhile or stimulating, there it is in the jumble. It was thus that I came home last week with a copy of 'Tragically I Was An Only Twin', a 400-page collection of the scripts and writings of Peter Cook, for a mere $9.99.
Eileen, my new acquaintance, spoke of her book-loving family. Her children were reading at the age of three. A bit later, dictionaries and encyclopaedias were among their favourite books. They all went to university and graduated. There are now grandchildren, and something seems to run in the family — having a brain like a magpie's nest.
We moved from books, through families, to genes and ancestors. Eileen, who is Australian, reeled off a list of the origins of her forebears, including Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Devon, Wales (near England), Ireland (both ends), Scotland (and some remote Isles), Cornwall (also near England, as a Cornish friend made clear to me many years ago).
We have Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire in common, and I can add Belgium, plus the folk of the latcho drom, Gypsies. They came from India many centuries ago but their current home is the ground upon which their feet are standing.
The chatter continued. Do we really inherit our features from our grandparents or even our parents? Difficult to sort out, when there are four grandparents with dark brown, mousy brown, blonde and red hair respectively. Fair hair and brown eyes, that seems standard. Dark hair and blue eyes, too. But males with dark brown hair and piebald whiskers? Hmmm, a genetic pot pourri?
The questions continued. Do we somehow inherit our interests from our forebears? There are bookbinders, booksellers, authors, and printers on both sides of my parental ancestry. Does that explain in any way why I became a bookseller, publisher, editor and author but my five siblings did not? Why didn't we become farm labourers, like most of the other ancestors? Nature versus Nurture, something you can discuss for hours.
Two half-cups of coffee had gone cold and a buttered scone remained uneaten. The old paperback novel stayed closed. Passers-by glanced with curiosity at two elderlies chattering enthusiastically like a couple of kids. Minutes became an hour. Oops, my car parking time might have expired. Eileen had to finish her shopping. The day made its demands but had already given us its best hour. It's so rewarding to rummage around in a mind that's like a magpie's nest.
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2007
Note: 'Latcho drom' is Romani for 'good road', which also implies the road of life.
