Books

I grew up in a home with very few books. My mother purchased at some time from a door to door salesman three volumes: Odhams English Dictionary and Odhams Encyclopaedia, both thick and heavy single volumes with orange-red binding, and a Complete Works of Shakespeare in a black binding. Shakespeare was beyond me - I can only have been seven or eight years old - but I used to read the dictionary, and the encyclopaedia was a constant favourite. I especially loved the page illustrating the history of the alphabet, and it was here that I first became acquainted with the Hebrew alphabet.
Once, walking back from the shops in Wythenshawe, I noticed for the first time a library van, and somehow had the courage to enter and discover the world of books. I think that moment counts as a turning point in my life. One of the first books I borrowed was 'We have Reason to Believe' by Rabbi Louis Jacobs, published in 1957. I read it all, though of course it was far beyond the limits of my understanding. I also discovered the books in my grandparents' attic, when I went to stay with them each weekend, and these stayed behind when they left Manchester for Devon in 1959. I read many of these, and some I still have, such as 'The Torments of Protestant Slaves in the French King's Galleys…', and a book presented to my grandfather as a prize when a pupil at Princess Road School in Moss Side, and my great grandfather's commonplace book containing quotations from poetry, and his notes on the Gent family history.
When I started going to Bishop Bilsborrow School I also discovered the nearby Moss Side Public Library and started going there when I was ten years old on my way home from school, though it did involve a detour. Now demolished, this was a fine library of the old type, with a reading room, an excellent reference section, and many newspapers.
I must have been about eleven years old when I discovered the Central Library in St Peter's Square. There were two main reasons for this. One was the St Bede's quiz, which included finding the source of very abstruse quotations. The other was my great grandfather's family history research, as I followed up his sources with the help of the librarians in the reference library. I spent many hours here over the next few years, and also started attending performances of the Library Theatre repertory company.
It was also at this time that I started attending Shudehill Market, initially to buy pigeons that I kept in the garden, but also because of the second hand book stalls, where I particularly sought out antiquarian books, one of which I still have. This is a Book of Common Prayer printed in 1720 which has been translated into classical Latin. Over the years I have added several volumes to this interest in different liturgies.
When I was went to university in 1968 I was sent a reading list, and in my ignorance I bought several of the books, most of which were useless. However, one book was to change my life: 'The Making of the English Landscape' by Professor W.G. Hoskins. I had spent over ten years between my home in Manchester and my grandparents' farm at Dowland near Iddesleigh in North Devon, and had spent many hours walking and exploring, and suddenly this book opened my eyes to what I was seeing. I was bewitched, and started going regularly to the Devon Record Office, with Mr Kennedy, then at County Hall, and to the East Devon Record Office with Mrs Rowe near Bradninch Hall, and even to the Exeter Diocesan Archives with Mrs Erskine, but very often to the Westcountry Studies Library where I received the useful guidance of Mr Paley. This was in addition to a very busy timetable for my degree which involved the study of six different subjects, both arts and sciences. I mastered many skills and decided to follow my degree by studying for the MA in English Local History at Leicester University that I paid for from my own savings. It was because of this that I started to accumulate the money books I have related to English history, local, social and economic.
Another substantial section of my library relates to witchcraft, and was started in 1982 when I researched and wrote a booklet about the trial of the Bideford witches, which took place in 1682, so I was able to mark its tercentenary.
When I came to live in Crediton in 1985 I acquired a large garden, and somehow discovered the writings of Gertrude Jekyll, and built up another large section of my library. As I always have done, I devoured and absorbed all I could from books, and then applied what I had learnt. There is a small section of my books devoted to the Japanese garden, dating to the time when I replanted my parents' garden in Manchester in the early 1970s, and another devoted to English traditional crafts which relates to my interest in making corn dollies at my grandparents in about 1970, and to Honiton lace, which I learnt to make whilst living in Okehampton in 1972.
With the arrival of the internet in the late 1990s I had access to vast new resources, both for research and for purchase. I was inspired by the copy I had inherited of the "Life of Thomas Gent' to find out more about him, and to build up a considerable collection of works printed and sometimes also written by him. This is now quite considerable, and a valued part of my library.
In addition to this book there were some others I inherited. The two large volumes of 'Middleton's Complete System of Geography', printed in 1778, were no doubt read by my great great grandfather Dr Henry Gent and his sister and brothers, but they were also studied by myself and my sisters in the front room at Mons Hall, my grandparents' Devon home. The engravings fascinated us, and I read much of the text too. Another volume I studied there was 'The Reades of Blackwood Hill and Dr Johnson's Ancestry', by Alleyn Lyell Reade, a volume which bore the name of my great grandfather, Frank Turner Gent, as a subscriber.
I was aware of a volume that had belonged to my great great great grandfather, John Gent of Spen Green, Henry's father. This volume had gone to Frank Turner Gent's brother, George Frederick Gent of Liverpool, but I was able to buy another copy in 2001 on the internet, and have it restored, and place inside it a copy of the inscription originally written by John Gent recording the details of the births of each of his children.
Over the years I built up what was once the largest section of my library: Judaica. Much of this I have now given to Exeter Synagogue. I have kept some of the books though.
I have a small section of books of English poetry with fine bindings, reflecting my interest in bookbinding that goes back to 1962 when a delightful art teacher at St Bede's taught us simple bookbinding. These include books bound by some of the greatest English bookbinders of the past hundred years.
Over the past fourteen years I have built up a very large section of my library relative to my mother's parents' families. This has grown considerably in the past few years. Some deal with the history of Trieste and of Gorizia, some of Jews in these places and north west Italy, and many with the history of the Schiff family, especially the life and work of Sydney Schiff. This is extensive, and the section that I want to collate and write up in the time that remains to me.