JANUARY DAYS

Like most of us, I am sure, I love the little extras we find in old books; the connections with the readers who were there before.

I have a book from the 1940s that was once owned by Susan. I know that because she wrote her name on the cover, in pencil. The pencil tip left a distict, careful, groove in the paper, speaking to Susan's concentration. I can see where her hand wobbled on the S and she corrected it.

Details like that give me the strongest feelings of Susan's presence - wherever she might be these days and hatever she might have gone through in life after those days. Reader-to-reader, booklover-to-booklover.

The Land of Poetry was, I think, a schoolbook, published in 1930. It was aimed at bringing poetry to primary school children. The selection is fun. It ranges from nursery rhymes - Twinkle, Twinkle and Bye Baby Bunting - to choices by such well-known poets of the time as Walter de la Mare and Christina Rossetti.

In a time when books probably weren't common currency for the nation's children, I can only imagine it was treasured.

So, much so that whoever owned this collection added to it.

Inside the front cover, an extra poem has been added, stuck there by two of the pieces of sticky paper you used to get around stamps.

The poem doesn't include an author's name, but I looked it up. It seems to be by Enid Blyton, from a collection of hers called January Days. Enid Blyton's books would have been popular at the time and she would go on to even greater success. She was a huge part of my reading childhood (which was a huge part of my life).

It's a simple poem, a tale of hope in the dark, of the beginnings of spring in the midst of winter.

But, the queslity of the poem isn't the point here. The point is, that someone had a book full of beauty and thought 'I could add to this!'

THAT spirit is the flower in the snow. In a world where it is all too easy to pull down the good and the fine, let's be more like that long-ago schoolgirl. Look for the beauty, appreciate it, and wherever we can, create more of it!

You never know how long your effort might last, how long it might lift a heart. In this case, it has been ninety-four years, and counting.