‘I suppose that all small boys look at their fathers in order to learn what makes a man a man. There must be as many answers as there are men.’ – Robert Westall, The Making of Me
Greetings from Hoxton Square where, between dashes from the packing desk to the phones to the kettle, we’ve been browsing the shelves and chewing over ideas for Father’s Day presents. One recent title that came to mind was the quietly brilliant The Making of Me by Robert Westall. Best known for his children’s book The Machine Gunners, Westall was a modest man whose writing was rooted in the working-class life of Tyneside where he grew up and where his father was a foreman fitter at the local gasworks.
Vivid, warmly human and written with a clarity and directness that make you feel its truth, it says everything about why Westall’s children’s books are still read and admired today. It takes us inside the head and heart of a boy growing up during the 1930s and ’40s in the shadow of the great gasworks, a world benignly ruled over by his father, an almost godlike figure to his son, apparently able to fix anything, returning at night from his magical kingdom with ‘boots of a fearsome chemical blackness and a strong smell of benzene on his cap’.
Westall catches the feel of a tight-knit community and the familiar characters who loom so large in the life of a child. It is a lovely and original book that describe not just the making of the man but also the making of a writer.
Everything on our website can be wrapped in handsome brown paper, tied up with our smart cream ribbon and sent off in good time for Sunday 21 June. If you’re worried about delivery times, or if you’re cutting it a little fine when placing your order, you can also choose to have an instant gift card sent to you to print out at home or sent straight to the recipient by email.
Please do read on for a lovely little extract from Robert Westall’s The Making of Me and a selection of enticing present suggestions, including our special half-price summer offer on new gift subscriptions.
With best wishes from the SF staff
Isabel, Rebecca, Edie, Ruth & Jennie
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