Most of us have had a father at one time or another. Life sort of works like that. I was fortunate that I knew my father, but unfortunate in that he died not long after I left college, in the early eighties, so I never knew him as well as I should have done. He was a liberal, eccentric man, and leaked money on a regular basis, so there was no eager waiting at the solicitors. No chance of any “And to my valet of twenty seven years devoted service, I leave the Island of Guernsey” moments.
I think that my mother and I were mostly relieved that he hadn’t gone bankrupt on the quiet and that the tortoises weren’t going to be repossessed. My material inheritance included a loaded .455 Colt revolver under the bed (not that common in eighties Yorkshire) and an attic full of ammunition. He had been a gun-dealer at one time, so this wasn’t quite as unusual as it seems.
I was brought up firing weapons (tea-times could get very dangerous in our house), and I already had his scoped Remington rifle and a Spanish revolver, so the Colt had to go. So did the others, eventually, although I miss the Astra. It was a short-barrelled revolver which was utterly inaccurate, so if you pointed at the centre of the target you got a lovely spread of bullet holes all round the edges. Very arty.
Additional heirlooms included his lighthouse-keeper uniforms, boxes full of family memorabilia and a lot of books. Oh, and instructions that a farming friend of his was to destroy all his ‘Scandinavian’ magazines. Somehow I don’t think that those were about Viking history.
I had wanted something really intimate by which to remember him, such as a prized collection of twenty pound notes, but books were better than nothing. He wasn’t exactly a reader of Greek classics. He loved westerns and adventures – Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Hammond Innes and so on – and crime novels by people such as Georges Simenon, Ngaio Marsh and John Creasey. We had all the Lesley Charteris ‘Saint’ novels, and a lot of oddities, ranging from a leather bound set of Lord Roberts’ ‘Forty One Years in India’ to Frank Yerby adventure-romances.
And he had obviously been a real ‘boy’ in his day, reading all the comics and short books they used to publish, including the Greyfriars School stories (best known now probably for the Billy Bunter character), and copies of The Boys’ Friend Library.
Some of the latter he bound himself into little compendiums. I have in front of me right now what he called “Adventure – Volume 3, which contains:
- The Silver Dwarf by John Andrews
- The Lion at Bay by Roger Fowey
- South Seas’ Treasure by Charles Hamilton
- Columbus, Junior by Jack Holt
It is worth noting that The Lion at Bay is a thrilling alternative history/SF adventure where African and Asiatic troops seek to invade England, and is possibly the most racist piece of SFF I have ever read. It is irredeemably and horribly offensive, but includes the Norton Triple Gun, the favourite weapon of my childhood:
“The length over all was more than forty feet, and it might have been eight feet wide. There was a very fat tapering barrel laid upon what appeared to be a solid metal base – actually, very powerful motors were here concealed.
“Low down on either side of the barrel there were troughs in which men could lie. At the end of the barrel there was a protective hood behind an enormously thick stretch of metal (containing) hydraulic buffers. Beneath the hood was a small instrument board, now lit by shielded electrics.
“There are three barrels (Norton explained). Each fires a shell the fraction of a second after the other. Each barrel is automatically aligned to send its shell on exactly the same spot as the others…. The third shell will complete the penetration, no matter how thick the armour.”
Equipped with a pre-production Norton Triple Gun, plucky chums Keith and Don thwart the entire invasion, of course. It’s that simple.
I have other Boys’ Friend Library collections somewhere, but not as many as I would like. Dad bound up a few collections in the late 1930s, including some of Robert Murray Graydon’s Captain Justice series of books.
Robert Murray Graydon (1890 – 1937) wrote under a number of pseudonyms, including Murray Roberts, and produced astounding adventures for Captain Justice, who faced evil Arab sheiks, aliens, androids and undersea nasties as a matter of course.
“Very British, Captain Justice wore white ducks, smoked cigars and worked out of Titanic Tower in the mid-Atlantic. In the course of battling for good he survived Robots, giant insects, runaway planets and an Earth plunged into darkness. His exploits deeply affected the impressionable mind of a young Brian W Aldiss, among others of that generation.”
Graydon also wrote at least four Sexton Blake adventures. If you’re into this peculiarly British period stuff, you can find a full list of the Boys’ Friend Library and covers at the Friardale site. I nicked some of the cover illos used here from them because my copies are mostly the worse for wear.
friardale – boys’ friend library
Dad had always wanted to be a writer, and had worked on all sorts of political thrillers. He left me some old manuscripts of his, although they seem to involve trade unions and espionage at Hull docks. I don’t think they bear resurrecting, sadly.
On the plus side, he also left me the early family name Linwood, which I do rather like, and thus I keep it prominent in my own writing tag, a sort of memorial to the old chap. I shall leave it to my own son in turn, who has no interest in writing whatsoever. He will say “Stupid name.” and go back to his X-box.
Such is the nature of inheritance.
On Saturday, we interview rising star of the fantasy novel world, sight-hound enthusiast and lovely person Joanne Hall…