Evocation of a reading child's imagination

Hazel Wood has a wonderfully evocative description which I suspect resonates with every reading child, current and former.

"I grew up in a house on the edge of a cliff, looking out over a bay. There was an upstairs drawing-room which was never used, and in the evenings when I was a little girl, I would go up there and close the door. Kneeling on the window-seat, I would gaze out at the sunset over the sea and the clouds banking on the horizon, and escape into my imagination. In those clouds I saw horses and chariots, marching legions, the thronged streets of medieval towns, knights in armour, great ships in full sail on a golden sea - vivid images from the books my father read me. The worlds they conjured up were consoling and utterly real to me, and I lived in them more than I lived in the present."

From Slightly Foxed, No. 17 Spring 2008, The Truth of the Heart by Hazel Wood.

This essay is a review of Rosemary Sutcliff's works (Featured Author of TTMD, October 21, 2007) and her autobiographical work, Blue Remembered Hills, just re-released in pocket edition and available directly from Slightly Foxed.