8407/21326 = 0.3942136359373535
I've been reading
Stig of the Dump with Ernie (when I've been home) over the last few weeks. We're approaching the denouement now.
I used to love this book when I was his age and Ernie is equally enraptured by it. It was written in 1963, but aside from it taking place in a world where kids are allowed to go out all day (and night) by themselves and play in woods and chalk pits with seemingly no adult giving a flying fuck what they're up to, it hasn't really aged. And isn't packed full of racism or any other unpleasantness like most kids books seem to be.
I am loving reading it again and unsurprisingly have forgotten most of the details in the fifty years since I last read it, but can remember how it grabbed and thrilled me and fired my imagination and it's awesome to see my son having the same reaction.
He had been allowing his mum to read some chapters, but loved the way I portrayed the Snarget brothers so has been waiting for me to be around to read the rest of it (he's doing Fantastic Mr Fox with Catie - I haven't read that one, but it's Roald Dahl so probably a nice dose of racism in it).
Ernie is keen to revisit the chalk pit we used to occasionally visit back near our old village as he thinks there might be a caveman living there and has (with a little help) made himself a spear out of a bit of slate, a stick and some string (if he kills anything or anyone I hope we can blame Clive King).
Tonight we got very close to finishing the book - I'd forgotten that Barney and his sister (spoilers) go back in time to see a standing stone circle being constructed- but had to bail out as we were both nearly asleep. Although there is some (as yet) unexplained time travel and mystery in there, I love the fact that it's got some real sense of history. It's beautifully written too, by a rare children's author who might have a good heart, rather than being driven by hatred (to be fair, I think my wife is one of those two, though she is slightly prejudiced against people who are me). I didn't know too much else about Clive King and his other work did not ever find its way into my hands, but I am delighted to see that he lived until 2018 and was 94 when he died. I only slightly regret the fact that I might have sought him out and thanked him for his work as recently as 7 and a half years ago. Hopefully I will find Clive King in a chalk pit somewhere, him having slipped through time and can thank him for writing this brain-expanding book (and giving him a bill for any damage caused by the lethal spear that my son has made.)
Last month I had to think a little about the family things that get handed through the generations - obviously my ventriloquist dolls are an amazing connection back to a great-grandfather that I never met, yet still honour (and dishonour) through my work. I can't tell you what joy it is to see a book that creates exactly the same spark in my son as it did in me. I am very glad that for whatever reason he wants to share this with me too.
An idea can outlive the person who first had it and still have incredible power.
Thanks Clive. And thanks to Stig too. Stig lives on, incredibly, even though he never actually lived at all. But Ernie and me will keep checking chalk pits to see if we can find him.
