Almost a disaster

After much walking-past-the-front-of-the-shop-to-see-if-the-owners-were-in I spotted one of them. I knew what I wanted to ask, I'd seen the book four days earlier and really wanted to add it to my collection, and yet when I was last in the shop my wife and I were the only people around. No one to pay money to, no one to say what a lovely bookshop we were in.

The book was The High Girders, John Prebble's account of the Tey River Disaster of 1879. I had heard of the disaster though didn't know much. The book's wide claim of the decline of British engineering will be interesting to see if Prebble can demonstrate his argument. Though I think the desire to buy the book is down to two things.

I was in Dundee earlier in the week.

And, I was thwarted in my efforts to purchase the book earlier this week.

The High Girders: The Tey River Disaster 1879, John Prebble
Callander secondhand bookshop

The most friendliest of librarians [not in the Fahrenheit 451 sense]

There is a place in Scotland where I was able to do something I never, ever thought I would do. I touched while reading a first edition version of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. It was a kind of of a good feeling. It is also an odd feeling, the book is worth a lot of money (certainly more than I am accustomed to when handling books), and yet the Faerie Queen was practically thrust into my hands to read.

Where was I? This was an unusual sensation for me, very unusual. Aside from the Queen I was told I could read through parts of an English language bible that predates the King James Bible. I passed up on this for the Discovery of Witchcraft. The first few wild sentences of that book, published in the 17th century, more than made up for it.

Anyway, where was I? The Library at Innerpeffray, which was set up during the Enlightenment to lend books to the public. At the time, the most welcoming of staff informed us, literacy was at close to 75 percent of the Scottish population, with England at less than 50 percent (I am a little sketchy on this, so don't quote me in a dissertation or other academic journal). The Library is situated near a bend in a river, not far from the St Andrew's Golf Course, and was lending first editions to the public from 1680 to the mid-1960s.

I suggest you visit and see for yourself.

Also, on the travels today I bought the Brightonomicon (PDSA in Callander) and Renegade by Mark E Smith (British Heart Foundation Scotland). Renegade is the second book I own relating to the Fall, though this is about Mark E Smith himself (speaking for himself) rather than a collection of stories based on the stories in Fall songs. I was put on to Renegade by a former colleague who put me on to the best ever remix of a James song (Sabres of Paradise's Jam J, forty minutes of absolute dub heaven), so this book will be good.