A Pebble on the Beach

Today is the 90th birthday of the Cheshire writer Alan Garner. I began a secondary education at a school in Buxton called Normanton, now long since closed down, fifty years ago, and in my first year there; form 1, the teacher Mrs Kelly, daughter of headmaster Mr Hadlee, introduced the class to the work of Alan Garner. It was September 1974, and the book was read aloud to us on Friday afternoons, and therefore the mind of the weekend was on ‘The Weirdstone of Brissingamen.’ That was now just over half a century ago, and I still re-read that book a couple of times a year whether Alan Garner thinks it’s any good or not. The poem ‘A Scapeshifter’ that this site is about; references to the writings of Alan Garner