Hal’s Reading Diary: September 2007

A father’s favourite book from childhood may not equally delight his son. Psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills explains what happened when he read Stig of the Dump to his six-year-old son Hal.

If anyone had ever asked me what book I would most like to read to Hal I know without any doubt what I would have said – Stig of the Dump. Although I must have read hundreds of books in the course of childhood incredibly few have stayed in my memory. I have vague recollections of Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ books though I couldn’t begin to recall any plot details. When I could read to myself, I remember loving an illustrated History book with sonorous chapter titles like ‘The Glory that was Greece’ and ‘The Grandeur that was Rome’. But from the pre-reading era only one book has stayed with me – Stig.

So it was a real thrill to start reading Stig with Hal. The story is fantastic in both senses of the word. Barney, a boy of 7 or 8, goes to stay with his grandmother and finds a genuine caveman living in an old chalk pit-cum-tip that borders onto her garden. How Stig has been transposed into modern times remains a mystery, but it isn’t what exercises Barney or Clive King’s thoughts. The main energy of the book lies in the delightful comedy that comes out of the collision of the amiable Stig’s world and Barney’s 20th-century (and rather upper middle class) life. Stig joins in with a hunt Barney’s sister is riding with, but Stig hunts for real and takes a pot shot at a pompous huntsman’s mount imagining many meals are likely to come of it. He terrifies the Snarget brothers – a trio of working class ruffians from the wrong end of the village.

The final chapter of the book is a fantasy sequence set on the night of the Summer Solstice. Barney and his sister Lou can’t sleep and going out into the garden find that the familiar world has gone and time has slipped back to Stig’s era. They meet Stig’s clan and witness the erection of a stone arch like the ones at Stonehenge. The writing is intoxicating, a midsummer night’s dream of great power and it was the enchantment of this Solstice chapter that made the book stick in my mind for so many years. Barney and Lou eventually wake back in their own world, but aching limbs (they have helped put up the arch) and the continuing presence of Stig tell them that it wasn’t all a dream and they return happily to Grandma’s house as the book ends.

But what about Hal’s reaction? Was he as captivated by Stig as I had been as a small boy? I don’t think so. The bits he enjoyed most were slapstick – knockabout scenes like Barney pelting the Snargets with mud before they give chase. The hypnotic mood of the Solstice sequence still made an impression on me, but it hasn’t been mentioned subsequently by Hal who will always talk about the things that impress him and run through his mind. So revisiting Stig turned out to be more for my benefit than Hal’s in all probability. And I think I might even find a home for it in my shelves rather than his. He can always ask for it if he remembers it.

Stig of the Dump by Clive King is published by Puffin.