The New Girl and Nancy

After a bit of a pause, today I have decided to write a bit about a book I have been reading this week.

The Nancy and St.Brides series of school based stories  by Dorita Fairlie Bruce is one I've been slowly making through since being presented  with one book and buying the others in a series of contemporary  high quality reprints.

We last left Nancy at Maudsley Grammar after a disastrous term at St. Brides, working on the resolving the feud between themselves and Larkistone through the Guildery movement and its ethos of moral  education and personal responsibility and the inter-school competitions.

This new term a heiress, Barbara Stephen, arrives and Nancy is involved in settling her in although the expression "two's company, three's a crowd" comes to mind as it place strains on her previous friendship with with Desda.

Things would of been so much the better if Barbara had not been so encouraged to see her role as that heiress, home taught by a Governess who very much indulged that very self centred, revolving all around her way of thinking who just wanted everything to be as it was so when she was spirited away from people who only wanted to be her parents for who she was for the Stephen's, she could not even see she had so much to be grateful for even for going to a lesser school.

An example of that defiant streak is her refusal to consider changing how she has her hair fixed as it is long and very wavy in a more grown up way while at school it would of been  a bit shorter and in pigtails or in a bob even though the signs from the other girls and even staff could not of been plainer.

Nancy takes a principal stand of not ganging up on her but carefully steering her toward the values of the other girls, seeing  past all that attitude she possesses, that there was a lot of potential good and she joins the Guildery where that hair creates problems for the unit inspection although to Nancy's surprise given the problems she had in Section 6  as "Maid of Merit" with unit discipline and even fighting, Barbara does emerge with some credit for her conduct.

That three's a crowd side rears its head when Desda decides to study for a Scholarship (what I understand to be a funded place based on ability) with an examination when Barbara decides to spit her in a battle for affections to apply too even though she really has no need to  given her financial security which indeed brings an attempted kidnapping and would crush Desda's ambitions.

During this period Barbara's relationship with school, the village she moved to and her new parents come under strain as her mind battles with the emotions her past way of life and that she now is in and expected to adjust to.

Indeed she even begs her Aunt to have her back and home schooled but the kidnapping puts that very much on hold as finding Nancy in who spent hours looking for her and her new friends tending to her injuries sustained from escaping the kidnapping,  she finds herself torn between her original aim and wanting to play for Maudsley in the inter school cricket match.

She finds even though she prepared for the scholarship exam revising, she struggles recalling information and understanding what the question is really requiring so she fails it. Pride isn't enough to get you through that.

Having recovered from her injuries, she plays excelling leading her team to victory, gaining acceptance from not just the other girls in the team but the whole school and soon she decides she really wants that school life as just a everyday girl part of a group than that exalted on display older girl as doll-child with all her refinery.

Indeed the end is quite moving that she decides to give away her fancy dresses for her plain girls wear and her uniform and lets Nancy cut her hair in a bob using a pudding bowl: she has given up the past, literally discarding it accepting being moulded anew apologizing to Nancy for how she treated her and the others.

Reading the story really made an impression on me, seeing family fortunes aside some similarities between myself and Barbara and where we were lost in self serving bubble that did us no good.

The Dandy Summer Special 2017

In what is it's 80th birthday even if sadly not in regular weekly publication, The Dandy launched its summer special since it's regular return in 2014 with all our favourites headed up by Desperate Dan and his famous Cow Pie.

I'm so looking forward to reading that this summer.

Guilty Secrets - The Moody Blues on Mp3

It's sometimes said things are "guilty secrets" things in which the perceived wisdom around a topic holds them to be so embarrassing to admit to liking them that you'd never admit to in company even though you actual do.

What is called "Progressive Rock" is one as here you can talk about the guitar playing abilities of say Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame or Rick Wakeman of Yes's organ playing, no one would put in a good word for the Birmingham  based Moody Blues rich at times orchestrated scores and poetic readings in their recordings.

This was an album I remember clearly buying in March of 1980 with a slightly different cover which was the home of the single (although that was a different mono mix) and Tuesday Afternoon that I liked which was as well as my History teacher Mr Garner loved the Moody's often talking about them.

I did buy the 45 in December 1979 which had the non album track, Cities on it and I bought a few years back the Mp3 download of an expanded re-issue of it that just happens to contain that track.

This was one I borrowed numerous times from the Public Library the home of Ride My See-Saw and bought last year on Mp3 download. The track Om is almost hypnotic.

Seeing this was on offer last weekend on download I treated myself to the Mp3 download of this classic album part inspired by the Nasa spacewalk in 1969 and home to the single Watching and waiting, very much a mediation on space travel and childhood.

It was a favourite of that teacher and having listened to a few times, I can see why.

A tribute to Leo

 Every Thursday come rain or shine there was one thing that British schoolchildren looked forward to and even though it is online only today, it is the same and that is the children's comic, the Beano that mirrored chunks of your world with stories about home and school life together with stories from far away lands.

This is a good example as any of a pre 1990's edition with Dennis the arch menace, his dog, Gnasher up to no good with 'soppy' Walter not that Dennis and his chums didn't get their come-uppance by "the powers that be" which you could say was the message although we all laughed at them.

This comic had a team of cartoonists of which one instrumental member Leo Baxendale died on Thursday April 27th, drew the Bash Street Kids and Minnie The Minx who remain even very popular characters. R.I.P Leo.

The Bruce Springsteen Albums Collection

Sometimes after a while you finally get it together with a plan  and in order to make some sense of how it applies in this instance,  it's necessary to look at the history of Bruce Springsteen's music here as part of it because it was the early 80's that I  started to buy his albums out right starting originally with the pre-recorded tapes of Born To Run, The River and Born In The USA and then as my record playing equipment improved lp records of Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Tunnel Of Love.

By the time he'd released the misunderstood  Human Touch and Lucky Town albums in early 1992 that I bought on cd, I had decided to standardize on cd and replace my worn tapes at the same time.

Those cds were assembled mainly from tapes in the late 1980's and those editions until three years despite upgrades on the packaging still had that source which was thin and indistinct.

That is where this seven cd set comes in because a new process (Plangent) to restore unclear recordings  and pitch imperfections was used on the actual master tapes has been used throughout  plus they have been issued in mini lp  form.

This simply means they come in card sleeves that replicate the original lps so on Greetings from Astbury Park, N.J, it has a postcard folded over the jacket and Born To Run has a gatefold sleeve together with replica inner sleeves to house the cd(s) which where appropriate have specific art and the inserts.

Other nice touches to the set are reproductions of the lp labels on the discs themselves which does build on the tactileness of the whole set.

Having listened to the set extensively, they do sound a lot better with the first two albums (Greetings from Astbury, N.J and The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle) much clearer and even the at times glary mess sonically that is The River is tamed with a number of tracks gaining better depth, more clearer sense of individual instruments and heck even some bass which is nice as that album is a all time favourite of mine for the song writing. 

As well the much played - over played on radio at the time - Born In The U.S.A.  has better defined bass and more shimmer on the cymbals especially on tracks such as Darlington County.

Original this set was a bit expensive on release November 17th  2014 and the booklet that comes with it isn't really needed being just reproductions of posters, reviews and photographs rather than a history of Bruce and these albums so I was on the edge over buying.

Fortunately I was able track it down to just under  £30 delivered which certainly fitted my budget for replacing all seven. Recommended.

 Albums Featured:
Greetings From Astbury, New Jersey (1973)
The Wild, The Innocent and E Street  Shuffle (Nov 1973)
Born To Run (1975)
Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
The River (Nov 1980)
Nebraska (Sept 1982)
Born In The U.S.A. (June 1984)

Essential later albums:
Tunnel Of Love
Human Touch
Lucky Town
These three albums mark the more domestic and personal side of Bruce Springsteen's writing reflecting on his life and the birth of his child.

The Ghost Of Tom Joad
Centred around the Steinbeck character Tom Joad he  explores the hardships of mid nineties Mid West and also of Mexico, this marked the return to very acoustic, folk feel set after the electric density of much of Born In The U.S.A.