So it was that, at the end of the school year, in December (the southern hemisphere’s summer), I, with mixed feelings, joined all the staff, the students and their parents for Prize-Giving Day, held in the Darwendale Village Hall, a relatively large building (by village standards, at least), which was used for social events.
On the stage, in a straight line, sat several teachers, along with the headmaster, whose wife was to hand out the prizes that day. Whereas the headmaster was small and round, his wife was slim and at least 8 inches taller than her husband. I remember thinking how funny they looked together because they were so different. I recall quite clearly that they were each holding a lighted cigarette. When I was summoned to receive my prize, I duly walked across the stage, in my newly pressed school uniform, feeling very self-conscious before a hall full of people, both students and parents. Then, maybe because, subconsciously, I was still smarting from the words written in my book, I tripped, falling forwards, knocking from her hand the cigarette which the headmaster’s wife had been smoking. Hearing the collective gasp from the horrified audience, I was crestfallen, embarrassed at my own clumsiness, and could have burst into tears there and then. Maybe this would have been good for me, in fact, because I was so upset about the silly prize in the first place! I have no idea who rescued the cigarette before it could set fire to the wooden stage, if not to the whole building, too. Grabbing my book, I charged off that stage, desperate to disappear somewhere.
I still have my book, which I have transported from Rhodesia to England and back again, twice, plus from England to Canada. Yet the odd thing is that I couldn’t bear to read it for years on end. It was not till I was in my mid-forties, that I finally opened the book’s green cover, with its scripted gold lettering “The Wind in the Willows”, and turned to Chapter I.
I read the opening words: “The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring-cleaning his little home…..”
Thereafter, I could hardly put it down. I simply loved it!
Even though I am now well into my senior years, I have never been able to part with the book. Why not, I ask myself? I suppose that, despite my mixed feelings, I have always felt that it would be wrong of me to discard my prize. So, I have packed it up amongst my belongings, and carried it from country to country, as I have emigrated from one place to the next. I don’t really understand why I can’t bear to part with the book, but I can’t. All that I know is that I love the story, and don’t want to part with that, at least.
In fact, I think I will read it again.
