Reading…

A very good summer for reading. While my wife devoured maybe 15 books or so, I gently wound my way through:

• Sahara, by Michael Palin;
• That they may face the Rising Sun, by John McGahern;
• Barefoot in Mullyneeny, by Bryan Gallagher
• Persian Fire, by Tom Holland
• The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai

A bit of a hotch-potch these: ancient history from Tom Holland, travel from Palin, and a mixture of Irish and Indian fiction and memoir from the others. I enjoyed all immensely though. Especially Palin in the Sahara, because I’d love to do that. And re-reading Bryan Gallagher’s book – championed by the late John Peel, amongst others – is a warm sereis of reminiscences about growing up in my part of Fermanagh.

But the stack of books by the bedside still to read grows and grows and grows.

Note to self: must try harder.

Boy, are we lucky

Over the weekend we packed our nine year old off on his first Cubs camping experience. It lasted from fom Friday evening until Sunday afternoon and for us slightly anxious parents it was maybe the longest weekend of our lives.

Not that we needed to worry. On his first night, he didn’t get to sleep until 1.00am because ‘Johnny was singing karaoke’ in the tent. They also played moon and and stars with their torches on the side of the tent.

But that first night was very cold for May. So he and his tent mates got up at 5.30 on Saturday morning and played football until breakfast at 8.00am in an effort to keep warm.

The rest of the weekend revolved around skirmishing, water bombs, grass sledging and what-not. I’m not sure if he brushed his teeth much. We know he didn’t change his underwear. And he only changed his socks because the pair he was wearing got wet during a water activity.

So compare this innocent weekend’s camping with another story of a boy spending time away from home.

On BBC Radio 4 last week, the Book of the Week was A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

It’s a harrowing story, an astonishing tale of unrelenting horror and eventual redemption. Ishmael is just 12 years old when the rebel forces attack his village in Sierra Leone and he is separated from his family. He roams the forests trying to avoid the attention of the rebels who might recruit him. Near starvation and desperate to belong, he’s picked up by government forces. Eventually, a gun is placed in his hand and gradually he turns from a kid interested in mimicking hip-hop artists to a drugged-up killing machine, thirsty for vengeance against the rebels that wiped out his village.

Ishmael eventually escaped and went to live in the US where he graduated and wrote his story. But not before he had killed God knows how many people and had his childhood stolen.

And our chap? We took him to McDonald’s as a treat. He fell asleep on the way home.