That’s the one 
Thanks Fleur. Yes I was aware of the Billy Bunter books and the similarity of style and content, but didn’t know it was Frank Richards in both series.
A more modern, but precious book is our battered copy of A Coast to Coast Walk by Alfred Wainwright (Ninth Impression 1973) which was an invaluable companion on our walk from west to east across the north of England over 40 years ago. We really enjoyed Wainwright’s text, drawings and sense of humour along the route. I love looking back at our notes of progress, stopovers, and weather in the pages at the back thoughtfully designed for just that.
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The first book I can remember being given was the Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker when I was 6 years old.
At the birthday tea… cousin Peter (whom we kids had never met before) produced a parcel and gave it to my sister (thinking she was the birthday girl).
She was 5 years older then me and when Peter was told of his mistake he tried to take the book back… offering to change it… since I would not be able to read it… huh !
I took the book … and fell in love with its pictures and poems…
I read him the first Spring poem… just to show I jolly well could read…
All my life, it seems, the last line has always sprung to mind when I see snowdrops…
“the fair maids of February stand in the snow…”
and, yes, I’ve still got the book… 
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Thank you for this memory Stella. Yes, I too had this book - not anymore sadly.
Lovely stuff Stella, and Fleur you reminded me of two books (which I also still have called ‘A British Bouquet’ and ‘Boquet de France’ which were produced by an American artist, writer and traveller called Samuel Chamberlain. These were of his travels around each country and also included restaurants visited and their specialities, plus his superb mono illustrations. They were produced in 1963. I found them in Australia, and like most things followed me around the world.
In 1he 1980’s we bought our first place in France and in my wife’s home suburb of Pantin. A tiny flat which we internally renovated into a ‘bijou’ place and where for a year I spent a sort of Bohemian lifestyle learning about art, cuisine and history. The French book resurfaced at about this time, and we took it upon ourselves (and our equally tiny FIAT 500) to visit towns and villages within reach of Paris and see what dining places still existed after twenty years - nd if any, to try out the specialities - again if they existed. A surprising number still did, and I wonder if any still do?
Let’s see if we can find out?
Brittany - Cancale - Restaurant Le Surcouf, Paimpol - Hotel le Barbu, Relais Brenner, Dian - Hotel de la Poste, Les-Ponts Neuf - restaurant Lorand-Barre, Huelgoat - Auberge de la Truite, Locronan -Auberge Saint-Romain, Pont-Aven - Moulin de Rosmadec.
NB The book is not a comprehensive listing of even gourmet eating places.
If anyone would like to pursue this a bit further for any details on restaurants in their province I will see what the book says.
That should read ‘Dinan’
I had this book and many Beatrix Potter books, second editions, which were owned by my mother and which my elder daughter now has with her in Munich.
How lovely… Jane…
Books handed down are very special as far as I am concerned.
My father’s copy of “The Birds of the British Isles - Migration and Habits - by T A Coward” from 1944 is very precious.
We shared a love of nature… and birds in particular.
I have quite a collection of more modern, well-thumbed bird books… but when I wander through this particular one, I feel Dad is not so very far away…
He read me the poem which appears on the first pages…
Flying Machines - by the Little Stint… (by kind permission of the Proprietors of Punch)
and told me that if and when I could read the poem for myself, he would give me the book…
It took a while, since the print is very small and the words just a little challenging for a tiddler… but I worked at it and got there in the end.
When I was three I could name all the birds in my Dad’s bird book, including a shrike, which I have never seen.
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Well done, Jane…
It’s amazing what sticks in the brain, just from browsing/reading/enjoying… our favourite books…
modern kids have many modern bits and bobs… but often miss out on some of the “simpler” things
I’m not sure that I could do it now though.
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I had a bird book too and whilst I remember almost nothing, it is still more than my kids do.
I found all my Beatrix Potters last week when sorting out my parents place in Normandie. And other childhood treasures…!
And I still have some of my father’s childhood books - my favorite being Dennis the Donkey. Complete with beautiful illustrations!
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I have some old books going back well over a century and more but MY books are my old school hymn book, Soccer annual for 1953, Childrens Encyclopedia about the same year and others. I love books and browsing through the old ones is fascinating. Seeing the changes when reading science etc in the encyclopedia and the wonders of the time. The Brabazon aircraft being one amongst many others.
Was that the ’ Arthur Mee Children’s Encyclopedia '? We had those- and very handy they were for homework.
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I am sure the small Observer’ Books led to a great number of early interests turning into lifelong passions, plus the similarly sized (later?) Blandford Books. I have collection of the latter and a few of the former. As ever it was the artwork on the subject that always got me in, I didn’t get many of the purely photographic ones.
I never had anyone to hand books down to me, or buy one for me, but I can understand the attachment that would exist. Even for me when I find a book that is inscribed as a gift to an unknown person, I spend a few moments wondering about the giver and the receiver. Little bit of history really isn’t - a small mark on the passage of time?
I have thought about the ‘most favorite book’ a long time, but ultimately I come down on a book that I read in 1953 when I became one of the early and youngest members of the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain. Definitely a lifelong love interest as my own productions can attest - albeit from the advertising angle. It stands out as the only book I actively sought out for almost 40 years! It is 'Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing 1896-1906 by Charles jarrott who was one the earliest British racing drivers. It was written in 1906, but my copy is the Fifth Edition that came out in 1956 - after a gap from the 1928 Fourth Edition. Nothing out of my several dozen early Motoring books comes even close to this one!, - and I have some great ones. Although all my books fall into that category throughout my life.
I call it ‘my gift to me’
This really is a memory stirrer notably with the mention of The Bristol Brabazon! I clearly remember my elder brother and I riding our bicycles from Slough to Heathrow and spending half a day watching this on its landing and taking off trials along with many others. The days when chain link fencing was all that separated the runway from the A4.
The trials had been announced for what was then ‘The Biggest Aircraft in the World’ and it certainly looked it against the DC3 and others of the same vintage. ultimately it was more of a white elephant and a commercial failure Still gets an honorable mention in my "Early Days of Flight Pt 2 book’
I can still remember a passage from that book where the mother of the twins was a cleaner at the Notre Dame Cathedral and her floor was clean enough to eat off. Stays with me still after nearly 70 years.
The Children’s book of Achievement bought for me Christmas 1953. Articles in it it by various authors and all subjects from ASircraft to Radar, Coal Mining and Science, Cats Cradles (!) tp the highest recorded height by a man made rocket (Not very high by todays’s standards) etc.
Arthur Mee was, by family rumour, supposed to be related to us as we have a lot of Mee’s in the family but my Ancestral Research disproves that.
Ah! the DC3. My first flight was in one round about 1951/2 ish at Yeadon Airport )Now Leeds/Bradford). A short fly round with my parents, probably about 5/- each or less, and I was totally mesmerised looking down at the fields and houses way below me.