Greetings from No. 53 Hoxton Square, where September is well and truly upon us and there’s a familiar back-to-school feeling lingering in the air. This quarter’s publications and reading recommendations are flying out the door to readers far and wide, for which we thank you. If you are yet to sample our bumper autumn crop, please do take a look at our Readers’ Catalogue via the Slightly Foxed website.
For this week’s missive, we thought we’d revisit Roald Dahl’s school days in his charming childhood memoir, Boy. No one who reads Boy is likely to forget the revenge of the filthy-finger nailed sweet shop owner Mrs Pratchett on five small boys (think mouse, think sweet jar); Roald’s stay in the San and the lancing of little Ellis’s boil by the school doctor; the fearful beatings administered with relish by the headmaster of Repton. It’s easy to see where the ogres who people Dahl’s fiction come from . . .
Please read on for an extract from his ‘First Day’, which you can read in full on the Slightly Foxed website, and for a selection of nostalgic school days reading recommendations.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF staff
Jess, Isabel, Rebecca, Izzy & Jennie