THE BOX OF DELIGHTS

An institution that has been in our family long before we had children (in those peaceful days of just Mrs. Atticus and me) was to listen to the BBC radio adaptation of The Box of Delights by John Masefield each year in the run up to Christmas.

This year we decided to buy the BBC television series first screened in 1984, for Thing 1 (9) to watch as we have been reading the book to him recently (for our own benefit rather than his, it has to be said, but he is enjoying it immensely, and there is great scope for putting on outrageous accents). As we don't have a gogglebox, it was quite treat for him to stay up and watch the first 2 episodes on the laptop.

Despite being 27 years , it really is superb and quite faithful to the book, evoking Christmassy nostalgia not only from our own youths but from that mythically wholesome era of the 1930s (it was published in 1935).  I'm not sure why the 30's always seems such a safe place to be, perhaps final days of innocence before the bloodiest war in history, perhaps because my own parents childhoods were during the 20's and 30's? Certainly people dressed more snappily...