Pauline Baynes's Narnia covers

I loved these books as a child. We (my older brother) had the whole set except "The voyage of the Dawn Treader" though rereading it in adulthood it seemed very familiar; the pool which turns things to gold and Eustace getting turned into a dragon in particular. I began lots of stories with finding the door or other mechanism to another world...

As a young child I didn't get the religious allegory which C. S. Lewis put in the stories (Aslan as Jesus, Eustace as Judas, etc) but understood it on an emotional level. Intellectually I (in common with Phillip Pullman) am repelled by the implication of these stories - that is that there is another "reality", a better world we can all get to if only we knew how - but they still retain their emotional appeal. As a child I hated the last book "The Last Battle" as Narnia is destroyed (the last judgement), I thought that meant that everything good and beautiful was over but rereading it as an adult it actually ends well (in Lewis's terms) as everyone is reunited in a kind of "heaven" which, guess what, looks a lot like Narnia.

Incidentally isn't Shadowlands a wonderful film, makes me cry without fail, but the message of it is quite different.

"Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."

Pauline Baynes illustrated the first Puffin edition of the Narnia books. Which I think should be read in the order displayed here. The Magician's Nephew is a 'prequel' but it has a lot more meaning if you have already read The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. It's the order they were written in too.

I love seeing these covers altogether like this, united by her style and the design elements, it's a great example of variations on a theme.

Everyone of a certain age remembers where they were when they heard that Kennedy had been assassinated, I was only 2 a the time so I don't, (it was John Lennon for me) but if you do, you also remember the day C.S. Lewis died too, November 22, 1963.

Beauty is relative?

When I young we had a small collection of singles, for the benefit of younger readers I am talking about vinyl records. They didn't get played very often, mostly at Christmas, and were kept tucked away most of the time in a cupboard. Among them were things like: Lilly The Pink by The Scaffold, San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie; an EP called More Swinging Guitars; a few Beatles singles and some children's records. These included, Sparky's Magic Piano, The Little Red Engine and The House At Pooh Corner.

Most of them were the standard black vinyl but among the children's records were two which were red and one, The House At Pooh Corner, a glorious yellow. Sliding it out of its sleeve to gaze at this wondrous object was an aesthetic delight: I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

I later Incorporated it into an "art" work which used a number of my favourite toys and other bits of "pop art" - I was very into Pop Art in my teens - I wished I hadn't later, it was much more thrilling to get an occasional glimpse of this object, hidden away like some religious relic and inevitably the "art" work was later discarded and the record with it.

However a few years ago I decided to see what this eBay which everyone seemed to be talking about was like: the first thing I searched for was: The House At Pooh Corner, on yellow vinyl, of course. I found one but not realising that people put in bids at the last minute, I lost the auction. But all was not lost, I emailed the seller telling him what had happened and asking if he had scan of the record I might have, he did, you see it above. He also had another copy on red vinyl, which I bought. I later found a yellow one and managed this time to win the auction. And to complete the set I bought it on blue and black too. The yellow is still my favourite naturally.

Here is the point: it's because records were normally black that the yellow one seemed so beautiful. If records were yellow by default it would be the black one which was the beauty. I think of this as the set theory of beauty.

Black cabs at one time were nearly all black, so to see the occasional maroon or white one carried a similar sort of aesthetic shock. Nowadays when there is much more variety and cabs tend to be plastered with advertising too the effect has pretty much worn off, to keep its aesthetic value the exception has to stay rare or the set becomes too inclusive.

I spent the first five years of my life in Kilburn in London so buses and bus stops were red. When we moved to Bushey and I came across London Country Buses and there associated graphics for the first time I found them "beautiful" in this way too. I still love the map, another eBay find. There is something particularly startling about a normally red object appearing green.