So first, a bit of back-story. When I was about eleven, my parents were asked to relocate to Fiji for work. Naturally, since I was eleven, I went with them, along with my older brother and younger sister.
Fiji was an amazing place to grow up. It was an adventurous, exciting place, full of settings for stories, and lots of time to play within those stories. That, and the fact that I had a practically endless supply of books, combined to make me a writer – I’m absolutely certain of this.
But that’s not really what this post is about.
Late last week, a fairly famous writer by the name of Gabrielle Carey sent me an email, asking if I knew anything about Ivan Southall. My immediate response was that yes, I did know quite a bit about Ivan Southall, and that his book Josh was one of my two favourite children’s books (the other being The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban). So then I asked Gabrielle why she had asked that question.
“Because I was doing some research for a book I was writing, and when I was looking through some of his old letters that readers had sent him over the years, I found one from a kid called James Roy. Is that you?”
Without looking at the letter myself, and checking the date and place it was sent from, it’s very hard to know if that letter was in fact from me. But it seems pretty likely, don’t you think, considering I was such a fan, and my name isn’t the most common name around? It certainly seems like the kind of thing I would have done. I don’t remember writing that letter, but it would have been forty years ago, and our memories aren’t all that reliable sometimes. But I can imagine saying to my mum, “I really love this book Josh that I’m reading”, and I can definitely imagine her saying, “Why don’t you write to him and tell him?”
So I’m going to try to get hold of that letter. Sites like Trove, which is run by the National Library of Australia in Canberra, is an amazing resource for all sorts of things, like historical documents, old newspapers and magazines, and lots more. And best of all, once you know which box of letters you want to look inside, they’ll let you do it! So next time I’m in Canberra, guess where I’m going to be heading?
I’ll let you know how I get on…
James
0 Comments