“Edward Barrington White, but I’m called Chalky at school. People named White are called Chalky; people named Clark are called Nobby,” he added by way of explanation. “What’s your name?”
    “John Smith.”
    “What a common name?”
    “It’s just as good as White. Dad says God must like Smiths or else he wouldn’t have made so many of them.”
    One of the most major things that changed when I began to acquire my own books—entirely from school and church prizes and Xmas and birthday presents—was that those girls with flashing torches and chocolate bars in their coat pockets hunting lost diamonds on stormy nights around haunted lighthouses, became boys, who preferred to sneak about in the dark, needed no sustenance, and were able to rescue themselves and each other from desperate situations in a way the girls could not.
    My personal favourite amongst these was a book called Chalky, by Howard Apps. There was a wonderful suburbanness about it—it convinced you that these terrific adventures awaited just over your back fence, and the boys were just like your mates down the street. The criminals could be nastier and the situation far more dangerous than in the female versions. Proof positive at the time that girls were inferior creatures in every way.