Beloved tome
What a glorious start to 2023, with a long-awaited essay on a tome, beloved of so many children of the 1970s [FT427:28-35]. Billy Rough’s feature captured precisely the love we all have for Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain – arguably the finest publication to come out of Reader’s Digest since Treasures of Britain.
Surely I wasn’t the only child of the 1970s who claimed ownership of the book and used every form of emotional blackmail to ensure the family summer holiday was spent on whichever chapter took my fancy that week?
The art, the stories, the sense of mysteries to be explored, often a mere short drive from home? How many of us discovered a love for folklore, magic and fairy tales, based solely on this book?
Thanks for a trip down memory lane and a renewed vow to seek out those last few mysteries.
Martin Paul
By email
Xmas Truce
I enjoyed the Mythconception on the ‘soccer truce’ [FT426:19]. Being a Great War Geek (I’m on the committee of the Cleveland branch of the Western Front Association), I have to point out that the Tommies are mistakenly shown wearing steel helmets. I’m afraid they weren’t issued until late 1915 and not in quantity until spring 1916. Many people get sentimental about the Christmas Truce, but it didn’t mean a lot at the time. There is an amusing story in one of the late Richard Holmes’s books about a German soldier shouting “Hello! I am Fritz the bun maker from London. What is the football news?” He was apparently a Chelsea supporter.
George Featherston
By email
Fearsome spike
The article about satanic toys [] got me thinking about a related moral panic of 1980s Britain. It seemedChristmas toys flooding our shores from the Far East, and the dire consequences contained within. I have memories of news features of snow globes containing toxic water, dolls’ houses with lead paint and teddy bears with eyes hanging by a thread. Perhaps the most gruesome footage I remember is of an earnest trading standards officer removing the head of a doll to reveal a sharp and sizeable spike. I would love that to appear on YouTube.
