I don’t know how he came into my head, maybe I was reminded of one of his stories and the thought led to him – Robert Westall, an extraordinary writer. I’m not sure how many of his books I’ve read, but there are a couple which, although they were aimed at younger readers, were incredibly creepy and quite frightening. He was born in 1929 in North Shields, and died at the comparatively young age of sixty-three in 1993. Many of his books, especially the earlier ones are so-called children’s books, although some of them are very dark indeed.
The first one I remember reading is “The Machine Gunners” which was published in 1975.
The Machine-Gunners is a children’s historical novel by Robert Westall, published by Macmillan in 1975. Set in northeastern England shortly after the Battle of Britain (February 1941), it features children who find a crashed German aircraft with a machine gun and ammunition; they build a fortress and capture and imprison a German gunner.
Wikipedia
I grew up a long time after the war, but there was still evidence of it for many years, and I remember when I first went to Manchester there were still areas which were derelict as they’d been bombed. Another memory which has suddenly arisen is of going by train to London with my mum and we went through an area of semi-derelict houses, their walls blown off so we could see into he ruined rooms, net curtains flapping at the remains of glass-less windows. My dad was in Europe during the war, my mum a teenager and they had told us their different stories, so reading The Machine Gunners really engaged me.
A really, really creepy novel by Westall
The Scarecrows is a young-adult novel by Robert Westall, published by Chatto & Windus in 1981. It is a psychological novel with a supernatural twist, featuring a thirteen-year-old boy’s reaction to his mother’s courtship and remarriage six years after his father’s death. It deals with themes of rage, isolation and fear. Beside the inner themes, it “tells of a boy and his family brought to the brink of destruction by sinister external forces” and it may be called a ghost story.
Wikipedia
I had a little shiver just reading this blurb and although I am going to catch up on Westall’s novels, I’m not sure I will re-read this one! A creep too far! Ever since reading it I’ve had an uneasy feeling about scarecrows,. As a child, however, I had loved Worzel Gummidge, probably the most famous scarecrow, who arrived on BBC radio in 1935, and only later appeared in books by Barbara Euphen Todd some time later in 1947.
Having looked at Westall’s catalogue, I think I’m going to get hold of several of his other books, maybe his later ones. No doubt, I will report back here, in the meantime maybe you’ll catch up with ‘The Machine Gunners’ and ‘The Scarecrows’!
My featured image is of a delightful and not scary scarecrow which appeared in our village as part of the recent scarecrow festival.
