What's In A Name?
I couldn’t believe it! Her surname was Eliot, just like the
characters in the book I had just been reading. They were all camped inside my head, The Eliots of Damerosehay, and right across the room from me was a tall, blond woman who could have leapt right off the pages straight into this house in Belgrave Square where the party was in progress. I adored the fictional Eliots' creator, gentle English author Elizabeth Goudge, who had written enough books to keep me going for years: The Little White Horse, Green Dolphin Country, The Scent of Water and A City of Bells – I’d read them all, occasionally finding life inside her stories a much better place to be than my own distracted home.
Back to the party where I asked around until I had an address (just around the corner, literally) and one dark wintry evening I ventured out, knocked on number 19, declaimed my name as if that explained everything and Ms Eliot opened her door wide, welcoming me into her home. I’m not sure how long it took for us to become firm friends - maybe five, or even ten minutes. I am sure, though, I never even told her why I had come!
Even now, when I think back to when I was an innocent 16 year old, I thank Elizabeth Goudge for introducing me to someone who became a true and trusted lifelong friend. Books are funny things, you know, they can affect you in all sorts of way – all you have to do is open the covers and start reading.
characters in the book I had just been reading. They were all camped inside my head, The Eliots of Damerosehay, and right across the room from me was a tall, blond woman who could have leapt right off the pages straight into this house in Belgrave Square where the party was in progress. I adored the fictional Eliots' creator, gentle English author Elizabeth Goudge, who had written enough books to keep me going for years: The Little White Horse, Green Dolphin Country, The Scent of Water and A City of Bells – I’d read them all, occasionally finding life inside her stories a much better place to be than my own distracted home.
Back to the party where I asked around until I had an address (just around the corner, literally) and one dark wintry evening I ventured out, knocked on number 19, declaimed my name as if that explained everything and Ms Eliot opened her door wide, welcoming me into her home. I’m not sure how long it took for us to become firm friends - maybe five, or even ten minutes. I am sure, though, I never even told her why I had come!
Even now, when I think back to when I was an innocent 16 year old, I thank Elizabeth Goudge for introducing me to someone who became a true and trusted lifelong friend. Books are funny things, you know, they can affect you in all sorts of way – all you have to do is open the covers and start reading.
Labels: Elizabeth Goudge
3 Comments:
Hello, My name is Deborah Gaudin and I run the Elizabeth Goudge Society Website. I really enjoyed your What's In A Name piece,and would love to include it in next months update.
Your bookshop also sounds fascinating and I'm sure I'll be using it in future. Would you like me to put in a site link too?
regards Deborah
A site link to the Elizabeth Goudge Society Website would be perfect! My father would have been so pleased as he was just as big a fan. While clearing out the old family home a few years ago I came across a letter from Elizabeth Goudge to my father and discovered they had struck up a correspondence.
Regards
Mary Burnham
Hi Deborah - so glad you found us! It's www.elizabethgoudge.org that you run? Lovely photograph of her!
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home