Comments on: William Mayne (1928-2010): bridges, battles, bygones; quaking bogs and (eu)catastrophes https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes Lollards in the high church of low culture Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:35:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: sükråt tanned rested unlogged and awesome https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1245357 Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:35:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1245357 Hullo Karen:

Thanks for your comment. Which were your favourites? Which do you recommend?

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By: karen https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1245077 Mon, 07 Oct 2013 06:45:33 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1245077 I read his books because I found them on the shelf, and I loved them. It was his spare use of language that I liked, and his imaginative prose. No one had to persuade me, but then I used to read Winston Churchills history of. The English speaking people’s for fun when I was nine so perhaps I had an old head on my shoulders.

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1243592 Tue, 01 Oct 2013 11:44:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1243592 Hullo Bob,

Thanks for your comment. When I read — as I often have — that Mayne’s enthusiasts were teachers more than they were children, I do wonder if it isn’t experiences like this that are behind it… that teachers liked teaching him because their pupils got so much from the reading. But that this didn’t quite translate into a significant self-motivating readership among children on their own — as it perhaps did with other authors. How old was the class you were teaching? The same age as the main characters in No More School (which is nine; some of the boys are older and the littlies are a lot younger)?

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By: Bob Fox https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1243488 Mon, 30 Sep 2013 23:03:16 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1243488 [Fox Pere incidentally – Dom alerted me to this]
A note on ‘No More School’: in the 80s I was head of a village school of about 30 pupils, and I read this to my class. I thought they might find it a bit twee, but they identified with it strongly, and really loved it. Somebody told me once about introducing ‘Lord of the Flies’ to a class of teenage boys. They were told to read chapter 1 for homework, as they would be discussing it in the next lesson. When the next lesson was due the teacher sat in the staffroom for 20 minutes or so before joining the class and saying “Well, now you know what the book is all about…”

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By: Dominic https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1136266 Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:05:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1136266 This is quite wonderful – and I’m happy to confirm that you have quoted me scrupulously!

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By: koganbot https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1135869 Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:05:57 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1135869 Mark, this is terrific, and thanks for the shout-out – also the link to the previously unknown to me Dom Fox. What lands of inquiry does Fox like to haunt?

Your and my minds were following similar patterns, as, when I was reading this passage, I was rewriting:

“In which more-or-less autonomous children intellectuals – by dint of unsupervised time-freedom stolen time and natural curiosity – encounter on their own time a puzzle that the adults credentialed authorities round them have left unsolved, and proceed to solve it. Their choices shape the story they’re in; their acts and decisions and investigations reshape the world the adults to hand their mentors – at varying distances – threw them into; the world, that is, that the adults credentialed intellects are also in.”

My disappointment with the music blogosphere (and the fanzine world prior to it) is that, even in its intellectual-seeming aspects, it’s pretty much capitulated to hallway rules, in that there’s a fundamental refusal by almost anyone to being willing to answer to anyone else, even to the extent of checking to see if you’ve got the other person right. And those of us – me, Marcello, Lex – who try to make demands on others encounter antagonism for it (not that some of the antagonism isn’t invited).

Actual real-life classrooms have someone, a teacher, who can make those demands: “you can’t go forward to B until you’ve mastered A, and I’m the one to tell you whether or not you’ve mastered A.” In response to this, a student, if she wants to, can demand that the teacher do the same, that he master her ideas. She can even claim he’s required to as part of his job. But she doesn’t have built-in structures for enforcing her demands. And most students don’t try.

Contra Dom (perhaps), I don’t think that “soft” authority is necessarily covert. You can certainly be precise about the demands/requests you’re making, and can be very specific about just where and how your peers are applying pressure. That people are often blind to such things doesn’t mean that they need to be.

By the way, if you haven’t had the chance yet, I hope you read my Pazz & Jop comments (its revised form here). Key phrases:

“no one in authority anywhere willing to tell the mob to stand down, no one being responsible, no one a genuine leader”

“adults were absent”

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By: lonepilgrim https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1135492 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:36:46 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1135492 Thanks for this – I’d forgotten that he wrote Earthfasts and was unaware of the sequels. I have no memory of the story of the former beyond that summed up by the image on the cover.
My mum, who worked as a Primary School teacher, was/is also fascinated by children’s literature – and not just for professional reasons. She recalls when she was training in the the 1950s suggesting to her tutor that she could write an essay about books for children and her tutor dismissed the idea because the subject was unworthy. She would pass on recommendations to me for books including William Mayne, Rosemary Sutcliff,Henry Treece, etc.

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/william-mayne-1928-2010-bridges-battles-bygones-quaking-bogs-and-eucatastrophes/comment-page-1#comment-1135468 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:03:03 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24477#comment-1135468 (I will probably return to this next week and tidy it up a little… ) (and er unpick some of the denser bits, once i’ve worked out what i’m talking about)

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