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Alice in the Margins

Alice in the Margins

The first school play I took part in was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in which Alice was played by a small boy who went on in adulthood to be a judge: evidence if you like for the determinism of early experience, for Alice is the only character, at the climax of the story, to stick up for due pro cess in the trial of the Knave of Hearts. Like most children she has sharply twitching antennae when it comes to injustice or unfairness, both of which she meets on every side. In his Annotated Alice, the editor Martin Gardner draws parallels with Kafka, and there is much in that. Neither author depicts a world with out rules: it is just that the rules are incomprehensible.
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Christmas Holidays

Christmas Holidays

We three children were looking forward to Mother’s birthday, which was December 18th. December was ‘our’ birthday month, Cyril’s on the 20th, mine on the 10th: but the 18th was by far the most important. With a view to deciding what was to be done, we gathered round the schoolroom table, each armed with a statement of his or her financial resources. My assets were contained in an old purse that I kept hidden in a corner of the writing desk. This I emptied on the table. The contents were: one silver sixpence, one silver threepenny bit, and an assortment of coppers – total one shilling and tenpence halfpenny. Cyril was not in a much stronger position, and it remained for Ethel to retrieve the situation, which, I have to admit, she did most nobly. Lucky enough to have a godmother who sent her postal orders she was able to produce nearly ten shillings. Most magnanimously, she suggested that we pool our resources and give Mother one really nice present rather than three inferior ones. Cyril and I volunteered to draw and paint a birthday card between us, and we left it to Ethel to decide on the nature of the present.
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There was one day that fell in early December, more exciting than Christmas itself . . .

There was one day that fell in early December, more exciting than Christmas itself . . .

Always on this occasion my father’s firm provided sandwiches and drinks for all comers: dealers, smallholders, cowmen, shepherds, drovers. (The more substantial farmers were entertained to luncheon at the Swan.) Great were the preparations on the day before the market. Enormous joints sizzled in Old Cookie’s oven; baskets of loaves lay everywhere about the kitchen, huge pats of yellow butter, tongues, sausages, pasties. Maids were busy all day cutting sandwiches, which were piled on dishes and covered with napkins. There was an air of bustle and festivity all over the house . . .

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