Hertford - proscribed reading

[dotsrebel]

I came across my copy of 'Bran the Bronzesmith' the other day - read in English lessons in the 3's at Hertford, 1965. Can anyone remember what we were 'officially' reading, year on year? - (and perhaps what we were not...I remember a hardback copy of 'Reach for the Sky' by Paul Brickhill, in the 2's House library, which we all read avidly, (slightly odd reading for 10 - 14 year old girls in the mid-60's maybe) and of course Anya Seton, particularly 'Katharine' was an absolute MUST. I was amused to see that it was in the list of 100 all time literary greats/must reads done by the Times/Telegraph/BBC not so long ago....

[michael scuffil]

Do you mean "proscribed" or "prescribed" reading? As for "proscribed", I recall "Les Amitiés particulières" by Roger Peyrefitte...

[dotsrebel]

How very stupid of me, rattling a post too fast. Mea culpa.... and of course that it is quite another subject. I can imagine absolutely that 'Les amities particulieres' would have been proscribed at Housey - although we always loved 'La nature du Prince' - so sweetly translated as 'The Prince's Person'.
PRO-scribed for us .... Lady Chatterly of course, and the St. Trinians books... there was a phase of taken them to chapel wrapped in brown paper instead of the Bible which we should have been taking to follow the lessons (two, twice on Sundays). I seem to remember another pair of books that were deemed to shock too much but cannot recall the titles....

So, two threads perhaps, the proscribed and the prescribed - thank you for pointong out my typ0.....

[Angela Woodford]

I was feeling very nostalgic about those books - the type you'd smuggle into Chapel - not so long ago...

Look back through Hertford Memories for a thread called "Bags I Read That After You" and see if there's anything else you recognise, dotsrebel!

Smuggling something interesting into Chapel! I'm sure Siobhan Kierans wouldn't mind me mentioning that she had a large Bible with a coloured-and-illustrated dust jacket; under which all sorts of similarly sized novels made their way into Matins and Evensong.

She got caught eventually... someone noticed that her darkness was being extremely lightened, oh Lord...

[dotsrebel]

Referred by Angela Woodford to her thread 'BAgs I....' Started in 2006. I only had to read her first one. 'Katherine' - of course, and she got the correct spelling. AND -there it was, the name of the other 'proscribed' brown paper wrapper that I couldn't recall.... Passion Flower HOtel.... of COURSE! Hugely lurid.

But back to the PRE-scribed.... Theras - the story of an Athenian boy?....

This forum is a shocking time waster....

[englishangel]

Was Passion Flower Hotel about somewhere around LA/Las Vegas, or am I getting confused?

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I'm having a brain freeze - proscribed, prescribed, set books for Eng Lit?

Cider With Rosie
My Family & Other Animals (for O level)
Jane Eyre (perhaps LIV)
?????????????????????

plays were The Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth (for O Level) and ??????????????????????

[englishangel]

Was never much into any English set book but I did love "My family and other animals", and I am currently reading "Birds, Beasts and Relatives". Just as funny at 5er.... as it was at 14, but you see different things. A bit like discovering why your dad liked the 60's Batman.

[Angela Woodford]

I feel a weird longing to forge (geddit?) my way through "Bran the Bronze Smith" again.

In my mind, I'm looking at the extra-narrow-fitting navy-and-white court shoes of Miss Champion; feet tapping impatiently below her table as somebody stammers over the word "coracle". Her white, long bony fingers flipping to the next page! The fierce red curly hair! Oh, Irish Miss Champion.

It's very strange. Apart from The Scottish Play with Miss Morrison (at 'O' level) I don't remember our set books. (I bet MaryB can remember them.) I expect it's because I was usually reading an alternative book below desk level.

[fra828]

We had as set texts for Olevel : Jane Eyre, Macbeth and Poems of Thomas Hardye and I loved them all! Infact nearly all our B class with Miss Morrison got A for English Lit. I remember Miss M saying she didn't like Grahame Greene. A short story called 'The Vertical Ladder' was a favourite of hers. I liked it too, but cannot remember who the author was or anything about the story now !

[englishangel]

the Vertical Ladder by William Sansom was only written in 1969 so must have only just come out when Miss M said she liked it.

It's what search engines are for!

http://www.enotes.com/vertical-ladder-s ... cal-ladder

[fra828]

Thank you for the link EA, realized I could have found it by Google etc, but wondered if anyone else remembers Miss M teaching it? Wasn't it first published in 1947 or have I misread it?

[englishangel]

Oops, yes, you are correct. I first found it on another site where it said 1969 but perhaps that was just the edition I was looking at. doesn't ring any bells with me but I never had Miss M for English.

[MaryB]

I feel a weird longing to forge (geddit?) my way through "Bran the Bronze Smith" again.

In my mind, I'm looking at the extra-narrow-fitting navy-and-white court shoes of Miss Champion; feet tapping impatiently below her table as somebody stammers over the word "coracle". Her white, long bony fingers flipping to the next page! The fierce red curly hair! Oh, Irish Miss Champion.

It's very strange. Apart from The Scottish Play with Miss Morrison (at 'O' level) I don't remember our set books. (I bet MaryB can remember them.) I expect it's because I was usually reading an alternative book below desk level.

Did Bran the Bronzesmith actually have a plot. I don't think I ever finished it, despite being such an anxious conformist and an avid reader.

OK Munch: our O level set books were: the Scottish play, as you say: Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon, Androcles and the Lion (Miss M was a sucker for Shaw) and - wait for it - Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming (eh?).

For A level we did Hamlet, Henry IV Pt 2, Under Milk Wood - and some Tennyson. Is that right/all? I know we didn't do a novel for A level and I struggled a bit with how to approach them at university. I seem to remember that there was a set book (Essays of Elia or something like that) that Miss M was supposed to teach us for A level but Mrs Betterton discovered after Christmas in our U6th year that we hadn't even started it so she took over and we did - was it Tennyson - in a hurry.

[Kim2s70-77]

"Bran the Bronzesmith"; "Alice Through the Looking Glass"; Thomas Hardy "Mayor of Casterbridge"; "Pride and Predjudice"; ????

For poems, I remember "Upon Westminster Bridge", lines from "Hiawatha" ("Hark you bear, you are a coward........."), "MIne be a cot beside a hill, a beehive's hum etc etc ")