Dear Cec, a long time ago I found a copy of "The Hunchback of Notre
Dame" in my hands. Translated from the French.

I think I had to catch a train. At any rate I didn't have a lot of
time to spare.

So I read the last few sentences in the book. I was immediately
fascinated.

I then speed-read the last chapter which was all I had time for.

I made a mental note to read the rest of it should the occasion arise.

Some years later, by chance, in a strange town, with nothing better to
do, I called in a cinema. The film was Charles Laughton as the
Hunchback on the pillory pleading to the crowd for water. The gipsy
girl gave him a flask

I then obtained the book via my local Carneague public library and
read the whole thing at a single sitting.

They don't write beautiful books like that anymore. Books which read
just as well either forwards of backwards.

The Carneague library, a present to my home town from the generous USA
before I was born, still stands and still much used, amidst the old
Victorian, soot-darkened houses in the Black Country where it all
began.

By the way, I'm on "Vin de Table de France" this evening.
----
Reg.