Peace, at last
Slowing things down in Los Angeles of all places.
Jill Murphy’s classic of which she is both author and illustrator, is one of my all-time favourite children’s books but I’m not sure I’ve ever owned it. I still have all my books from when I was a child but Peace at Last is somehow not amongst them.
I think of it often. I imagine myself inside the book sometimes to help me fall asleep—I am Mr Bear, moving through the house seeking out a quiet restful spot. I feel my eyelids heavy and revel in the dance on the edge of waking consciousness as I/ he/ we(?) go from room to room where there is some comfort but little quiet. The snores, toys, ticks and drips that interrupt his attempts to rest become a sort of Pavlovian drum for my own, a rhythmic soundtrack gently nudging me ever further towards the tipping point of blissful sleep.
Recently I have felt an overwhelming desire to read the book again. It must be more than 25 years since I last had my hands on a copy, or read it for another up and comer. I tried to buy it this Christmas with little luck. The shelves had been almost completely overtaken by Julia Donaldson’s Gruffalo series which are also lovely but I was actually quite saddened to see that most of what I consider to be classics of the genre (and my own childhood) not available. Gentle, sweet, tender stories have been replaced with an assault of more brightly illustrated, fast-paced adventures. Of course we had those too but it feels more plasticised now somehow, more commercial maybe? I’m pretty sure it’s harder to sell books these days, maybe that’s why. Or maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places. I asked the young cashier for some assistance, they’d never even heard of it.
In the absence of the book I start researching Jill Murphy and discover that she sadly passed away in August 2021. Also that she had once been married to a British potter named Roger Michell who at first I mistake for the Notting Hill film director who I had worked with shortly before his death and adored. I am taken aback for a moment as I realise that he himself passed away barely a month after Jill Murphy in September of 2021. A pause before I return to my search. I then discover there is a trilogy of ‘Bear Family’ books and make a mental note to order the others when I purchase the original. Further that she wrote and illustrated the Worst Witch books too - yet more classics with an incredible TV adaptation to boot (the ‘80s one baby, not seen the recent one)- as well as the bestselling Large Family series about a family of elephants with titles such as Five Minutes Peace—consider me sold.
When I’m travelling, along with a satchel of new reads, I always want something familiar with me as well, something that will remind me of home. That’s what made me seek out Peace at Last. It had been on my mind and I was headed to America for work for a few weeks. I’ve also been revisiting the children’s books I read as a child during the past year—something to do with tapping into both the reader and writer that I was then, I think. At least before high school and ‘what was cool’ got in my way.
Funnily enough when I arrive in Los Angeles (with the new miniature travel edition epic of Where’s Wally instead) I feel an overwhelming sense of peace. It’s colder than I knew LA could be which feels comforting coming from brisk, almost freezing temperatures in England. I haven’t been here quite so deep in Winter before.