Alpha of the Plough

Spring Cleaning is early this year

‘Alpha of the Plough’ a book of essays from my first year English class.

‘Pebbles on the Shore’ and ‘Leaves in the Wind’

Surprisingly I remember the book well.it certainly resonated with me at the time and looking back through it today brought back many memories, including the teacher and reading aloud in class.

Now thanks to Wikipedia I have found out the writer was the alias for Alfred George Gardiner, editor of The Daily News, 1902 - 1919.

And, here is a very apposite review also from Wikipedia

A reviewer of Pebbles on the Shore said Gardiner wrote with "fluency, deftness, lightness, grace, and usually a very real sparkle". The end of the essay "The Vanity of Old Age" is typically neat: "For Nature is a cunning nurse. She gives us lollipops all the way, and when the lollipop of hope and the lollipop of achievement are done, she gently inserts in our toothless gums the lollipop of remembrance. And with that pleasant vanity we are soothed to sleep."