The Bucktrout Boys

IN MY BOYHOOD DAYS, I got my reading matter, apart from the Gem and the Magnet, from the local branch of the public library. The library was near our home, in a Lowry‐like suburb of Leeds, full of gaunt churches and squarely‐built chapels, tall factory chimneys and long streety perspectives. Mr Bucktrout, the librarian in charge, was a fierce‐looking shortish gentleman with pince‐nez and a shock of grey hair. When we local boys called in to exchange our books, Mr Bucktrout would look sternly at us over his pince‐nez.