Time No Longer.......

Tom's Midnight Garden was one of the first books which gripped my attention, slapped my brain around a bit and refused to ever ever let go.

I have very vivid memories of the first time I read it. I was in Mr Stevenson's class, in the second year juniors (what we call year 4 these days). I selected it as my book, from the library shelves, and sat down to do my ten minutes of reading. I didn't get up again for the rest of the day (I may have got up to visit the loo, I suppose. I definitely skipped lunch). Luckily for me, Mr Stevenson was a good teacher. He obviously realised there was no point in dragging me back to my desk.

I loved that book so much. From the vantage point of today it's obvious why - it hits the wibbly wobbly timey wimey target dead centre, with some force. I suppose that is one of the reasons I loved it - but not the main reason, I think.

I really identified with Tom. So lonely, so isolated, so desperate for a friend. I felt a bit like that, in the second year. Sadly, I couldn't cross the timelines and I never heard a grandfather clock striking 13.......such an evocative image, though. This was before The Deadly Assassin was broadcast, so I had no particular associations with grandfather clocks, but the imagery still resonated with me.

At heart it's a straightforward tale of time travel - Tom, a young boy staying with slightly reluctant (he assumes) and boring relatives because of qurantine, in a dingy flat, longs for a garden to play in and a friend to play with. Hey presto, a mysterious clock with the biblibal phrase Time No Longer inscribed on its face strikes 13 instead of 12 one night. When he investigates, Tom steps back in time 80 years or so, to the time when the building in which he is staying was a big house with a big garden.......inhabited by, among other people, a small girl, lonely, bullied, unwanted by her relatives and longing desperately for a friend to play with........Nobody but Hattie can see Tom. But who is real, and who is the ghost? And will time let them be or is it playing tricks on them.....

TMG is a beautiful little tale of loneliness, longing, friendship .......and the damage that time can inflict on relationships. Abandonment and loss are just as central to the book as anything else - but ultimately, friendship and love can transcend even time. I always cry when I reach the end of the book, and Tom and Hattie are reunited. I like a good cry, obviously - but it's a lovely moment.

Since I first read TMG I have re-read it many many times, seen the TV and film versions, and the stage adaptation - all of which I would recommend. But the book is, for me, the best iteration of the story. Every time I re-read it, for me also there is Time No Longer, and I'm a small girl again discovering how addictive and compulsive books can be - and reminding myself that there's more to wibbly wobbly than a blue box with dodgy windows.


-- Posted from my iPhone