Finding Antonia

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

DandyinChina mentioned, on a thread over at *Esther's Term,* final chapter, that A. Forest is completely obscure in Germany but a friend whose literary tastes she liked had recommended her. I wondered how everyone else found Antonia, who isn't blazingly famous (as she deserves to be) even in the English-speaking world. Certainly I have never met a single American who has read her works, except people to whom I recommended them.

Here's my story. I was in London in 1971, aged 12, with my parents. They deposited me at Foyles for, as I recall, several hours, while they did other business in town. They said that I could choose five books. I had a long time to consider, and chose Ruth Arthur's *A Candle in her Room,* Brian Fairfax-Lucy and Philippa Peirce's *The Children of the House,* Norah Lofts's *The Story of Maude Reede*, and Antonia Forest's *End of Term*. (I'm forgetting the fifth, but it was good too.) There was a list in the Forest book of all her other works, and over the following years my father would order them from Foyles as my Christmas presents. I found the last ones when I was travelling in England myself, some years later. Now I have a complete set in America (including *Thursday Kidnapping* and the Elizabethan books) and about 1/2 of another set at my Amsterdam apartment, just in case I need a fix while I'm there.

I am proud to have once introduced a scholarly art history article (published in French, Flemish, and English) with a quotation from *Autumn Term,* the one where Tim compares her father and Mrs. Todd as a person who paints vs. a merely "artistic" person. That's why I was so pleased to see him "live" in *Esther's Term.*

Any other stories? Or was Antonia Forest a quite obvious choice for everybody else?

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand the scoring despite The Cricket Term and Murder Must Advertise.

I honestly can't remember a time when I hadn't read at least Autumn Term - I know it must have been before the age of ten or eleven, because I pirated the name Audrey Fudge for a story I wrote that year.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Well, look, if it helps keep your mind off things, it goes like this:

The wickets are 22 yards apart. The 22 yards is however measured from the crease, which is a line drawn some distance in front of the wicket at each end. A batsman has to have his foot on or behind the crease to be "in" when the wicket is broken. If the wicket is broken (that is, if the bails are lifted - and at least one falls to the ground, irrespective of the positioning of the stumps) when a batsman is "out of his ground" (foot or other part of the body not on or behind the crease) then the batsman is out. Mr Tallboys and Nicola both "break" the relevant wicket by throwing the ball at it from some distance out in the field, before the batsman can make his or her ground.

The more conventional cricketing move would be to throw to the wicket-keeper who should have moved to stand behind the wicket, leaving the wicket-keeper to sweep the bails off with the ball in his/her gloves, thus breaking the wicket. However, both Mr Tallboys and Nicola choose the riskier move, by throwing dead at the wicket to save time.

A run is scored when the two batsmen have passed, and each made their ground at each end (without the wicket being broken). In a run-out, the person out is the person running to the broken wicket after the cross, or the person behind whom the wicket is broken if they have not crossed (so it can and often is the other batsman's fault if he spots an incipient run-out and either presses on to cross or (usually) dodges back).

One can be out bowled (wicket broken behind one by the ball passing one's bat and person and breaking the wicket - sometimes deflected on by bat or person - as in "he padded up to that and played on"), caught (ball having touched bat or forearm holding bat is caught before touching the ground), leg before wicket (too complicated to explain here - would have been bowled had you not put leg in way), run out (as explained; wicket broken while out of ground), stumped (wicket broken behind one while out of ground too far forward), hit ball twice (self-explanatory), deliberately obstructing the field (ditto), timed out (too long getting to field of play), handled ball (another obscure one) and one other I can't remember at the moment.

There can only be ten people out before the whole team is out, because one always has to have two batsmen on the field at any one time. So - 10-0 means ten runs, no-one out. 40-1 means forty runs, one wicket. 42-3 means 42 runs, three wickets down. So 250-1 is brilliant; 250-9 is dire. So that's why in The Cricket Term the fact that Nicola and Lawrie have that opening stand really matters.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Ah. And why it's a minor disaster that Ginty gets dollied out, her presumably being more athletic than the stolid likes of Emma. Thank you.

I am now going to see whether a description of how to play cricket whilst travelling by reading from some printed material and having each letter mean a certain thing, that I've got in an old Eagle Annual of my Dad's, makes any more sense than it did.

On subject of knowing other people who read AF, I actually ended up sharing a bathroom at university with another girl who had. We used to wander round Clifton asking each other questions about the Marlowverse. Unfortunately it all fell over a bit due to a squabble about second-year housing, but I still wonder if I'm ever going to run into her again through AF fandom...

[beth213.livejournal.com]

hit wicket...
(your own, that is. Can be actually hit with bat or trodden on - equally embarrassing!)