Such Sweet Sorrow...

Someone in an online forum thread about ‘tackle tarts’ – anglers who always have to have all the latest gear – made the very good point that life is short and you can’t take it with you, so why not treat yourself to the best you can afford? Presumably, like most tackle tarts, he flogs his old gear or stores it away in his loft, but a much better use for it is to pass it on. It’s the same with books. Much as I like the idea of being buried with my rods and books ‘for use in the next life,’ every now and then I much more sensibly have a good clear-out, even of some old favourites. It’s hard to let go of things that are precious – very hard – but they are only things. My kids get whichever books they want, and my son in particular is now building quite an impressive library of his own. As for fishing tackle, I confess I still have a loft full of the stuff, despite occasionally selling bits off second-hand. Really, I must do better. Unlike some, I’m far too selfish to actually give up my time to take people with special needs fishing, but I did once pass on a redundant rod and reel to such a lad who was mad keen on fishing and the delight on his face made me feel ten feet tall.

Down to Earth...

I was in a secondhand-book shop the other day rummaging semi-blindly – it was a dark and dingy place, and having just stepped out of the rain I was having trouble with my glasses steaming up – and I was just wondering to myself why all the stock seemed to be priced (in pencil) at £10.00 when I spotted an unassuming-looking volume called Spies and Saboteurs priced at ‘£1 .00’. Note the space between the 1 and the decimal point. A quick scan of the first few pages was enough to tell me it would be an instant addition to my ‘Best Books Ever Read’ list and I went straight downstairs to pay for it. The owner looked at the price inside and hesitated, but it wasn’t me who had rubbed out the 0 (honest) and he had no choice but to charge only the one pound for it. Anyway, what about the actual book? Published by Gollancz in 1955, it is American psychologist William J. Morgan’s account of assessing OSS (Office of Strategic Services) candidates in England in WWII. Successful candidates were parachuted into France as... spies and saboteurs. Written in wonderfully plain English – one chapter is headed ‘Minefield and Acid Bath’ – it is a fascinating insight into how the brightest and bravest can make fools of themselves when tested under pressure. It is also full of amusing anecdotes. My favourite is how they early on identified one candidate as a German spy, strung him along for months on end then, when they finally dropped him over France, ‘forgot’ to attach his ripcord to the fixing-point in the plane… My copy of the book doesn’t have one, but this is what the dust jacket looked like:

(Apologies for the quality of the pic, but it was the only one I could find online.)