A time of teenage reading – is it gone forever?

(Excerpted from Life Can Be A Frolic by Goolbai Gunasekara)

OUR STRICT AND HIGHLY sarcastic form teacher, Miss Cockburn, (pronounced Co-burn) walked into class and spoke softly. We hated that soft voice. In fact, we dreaded her voice altogether but when it was soft, we knew it presaged danger. Our throats closed. Our minds went into shut down mode. She never had to say, “Be quiet.” Just hearing her footsteps down the corridor was enough to silence us for the rest of the day.

Today was not going to be a day of joy.

“Open your desktops you egregious bunch!” She never used a simple word when a dictionary-needing-word would do.

As if on springs every desk top opened. Nobody moved while Miss C. looked at us expressionlessly through thick bifocals. Her silence was more unnerving than the boom of cannons (a technique useful for teachers of today).

“Do you read books my dears?” she enquired silkily. “Of course, Miss.”

“And what did you read last?” This to Hyacinth whose reading tastes were on The Sheikh level – a book of impossible romance set in the Arabian desert.

Hyacinth’s mind scurried around. “Er, Jane Eyre,” she ventured.

“I am not speaking of textbooks, my dear,” Miss Cockburn’s sarcasm was starting to show. “Can your little minds think of the latest potboiler going the rounds?”

“What’s that?” Hyacinth whispered to Barbara Braddon, the class genius.

Miss Cockburn’s hearing was better than that of a sonar-tuned bat.

“I mean the sort of literature you all find so vitally interesting in spite of ALL the excellent books with which Bishop’s College provides you.” The gloves were off, and we knew what she was after.
Three prefects were summoned to search our desks. There were two copies of Lady Chatterley, a Frank Yerby offering, two Parkinson Keyes romances and a few minor unsuitable books. Certainly not the high key areas of literature our teachers expected, or rather hoped for!

Lady Chatterley was confiscated and parents of the readers informed. The Frank Yerby and Parkinson novels were sent to the school’s garbage bins and the lesser `unsuitable’ books confiscated anyway.

“That copy of Yerby is not mine Miss,” said Hyacinth desperately in whose desk the Yerby Foxes of Harrow had been found. “I have to give it back to the owner.”

Miss Cockburn raised her eyebrows while her grip on the novel tightened.
“What a risk you take with books not your own,” was all she said.

The irreverent talk among the class was that these books were all read in the staff room before being dispersed elsewhere, but who knew that. Certainly, our parents could not be appealed to as they had no idea of our reading tastes whatsoever. They assumed, with no basis at all, that our minds were always on the up and up.

We shut our desks and the lesson proceeded. It had taken Miss Cockburn all of seven minutes to conduct the search, confiscate the books and teach us a lesson we never forgot. We never brought ‘unsuitable’ novels to school again.

Let us switch to modern times. Who would have thought that teachers saying, “Don’t read such literature,” would be replaced by parents angrily yelling, “For heaven’s sake READ.” Lady Chatterley is now a virtual classic while the other authors are no longer on the reading circuit of youth. What a pity that authors like Somerset Maugham, Anya Seton et al are difficult to find at a bookstore. A library may have their books but even that is rare.
“So, what is the last novel you read?” I asked my O Level kids the other day.
“Huh?”

“You know – story books?” “Harry Potter.”

“Game of Thrones,” said a more erudite youngster who actually reads the books of George RR Martin.
“Comics,” said a third.
“Miss is your favourite Superman or Spiderman?”
I had to confess I did not know – nor did I read comics. In the eyes of my pupils, I was ill-informed indeed.
“Oh, Miss what a pity,” said the class nerd. “You really should read more.”
Give me an answer for THAT anyone!

(This article is excerpted from Goolbai Gunasekara’s latest publication, Life can be a Frolic, now available at all leading booksellers)