Record Number: 26718

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Transcript of interview: 'I don’t think there was anything that I wasn’t allowed to read. It was only when I went to school to boarding school and all my friends were reading Gone with the Wind, and my mother decided she would rather I didn’t read Gone with the Wind because of a very racy chapter where Melanie gives birth to a baby and she didn’t think that was suitable for me. I was thirteen or fourteen and I didn’t read it but I did read Vicky Baum’s Hotel Berlin which had a much worse scene where a woman gave birth in a rowing boat… I can’t think of anything that was actually banned at all. I read lots and lots of my father’s books and this was a book that I loved - Palgrave’s Golden Treasury [shows book]. My mother gave me this [shows book]. This is the one I learned to read on. This is the Water Babies. I remember sitting up in bed reading Mrs Be Done By As You Did and shouting out “I can read, I can read”! I was six. I didn’t learn to read until quite late.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 4 Sep 1940 and 4 Sep 1941

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Darlington

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Hilary Spalding

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

4 Sep 1927

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

child

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Vicky Baum

Title:

Hotel Berlin

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

26718

Source - Manuscript:

Other

Information:

Transcript of interview with Mrs Hilary Adams, aged 81 (2008) carried out by RED research fellow. For further information and permission to quote this material, contact the Reading Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php)

Additional Information:

n/a

Citation:

Transcript of interview with Mrs Hilary Adams, aged 81 (2008) carried out by RED research fellow. For further information and permission to quote this material, contact the Reading Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php), http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=26718, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

None