Quote of the Day

She saw Bill delivering his papers at the almshouses at the foot of Gallery Road. Bill's jaw dropped open when he saw the van driving back, with Joe Taylor apparently very much in command of the situation. His mouth was still open when Susan reached him.

"You got him!" he yelled. "Spot-on!"

Susan stopped. "Well, yes, we got him," she said. "But Bill, it was Mr. Smith the artist--"

"Mr. Smith the artist!" Bill repreated blankly. "Stealing his own stuff at half-past six in the morning? He must be bonkers!"

"Well, we know he is," said Susan. "That egg! But the thing is, Bill, he wasn't stealing it at all--"

"Why in the middle of the night, then?"

"Only time he could get the van, he said--"

"Oh," said Bill. "Is he cross?"

"Not too pleased," said Susan.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 7, Guarding the Masterpieces. For more on "that egg", click here.

Post 1000: A Job for Susan

Quote of the Day

"Yes, well, I don't think the directors of the bank or Mr. Abercorn or anybody would single out Tessa and me. Bill, run down to your house and see if there aren't any more letters-"

There were: one for Midge and one for Bill. Bill brought them back, panting, and they sat round the fire and gazed happily at their cheques.

"Six pounds fifteen and five pounds," said Bill. "Now I've got eleven pounds fifteen! Great!"

"Well I don't know," said Midge cynically. "Look at Bill, he slaved away at scrubbing and baby-sitting and cutting holly and paper rounds and what did he make? Feathers. And just by pure luck, he gets money from Charlotte and money from a rare penny and money from the bank. That sort of thing," she said happily, "puts you off work."

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 16, Money, Money, Money. The last words of Jane Shaw's last book, published in 1969.

Quote of the Day

"We could just go round and have little wee keek..." Susan suggested cajolingly.

No, they couldn't, said Midge firmly. What kind of a little wee keek would they get in the pitch dark? Susan's mother came in just then, with the suggestion that the girls might start making themselves useful, setting the table for supper and so on... And then Susan's father came home from his office. Much to Tessa's relief it was a nice, cosy, peaceful evening after all, with no more worrying talk about Bluebeard's Chamber. Thank goodness, she thought, Susan has forgotten all about it...

She should have known Susan better.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 3, Encounter with an Ogre.

Quote of the Day

Chang went with the girls when Susan trotted Tessa down Tollgate Road very early next morning. The Carmichaels were tall and fair and extremely good-looking, with the possible exception of Midge who at present just looked like a midge, according to Susan, all big eyes and little pointed face. Susan, in contrast, had dark eyes and dark curls and rosy cheeks. Beside her, Tessa, who had straight flaxen hair, looked like an ethereal creature from another world. She behaved like one too, Susan sometimes thought. Old Tessa lived in a daze most of the time.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 1, Bluebeard's Chamber.

Quote of the Day

"Och, I'm not going to spend your old five pounds," said Susan, "but we could get five pounds' worth of pennies and go through them quietly at home for the important dates--" Tessa supposed there could be no harm in that, "--and if we had no luck we could take them back and change them for another lot--"

"Give ourselves hours of harmless fun," said Midge sardonically, but as she usually found that it saved  trouble in the long run to give in to Susan's dotty ideas, she didn't object, and the girls and Bill made their way to the bank.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 9, Easy Money.

Buried Treasures 6

The cover of my personal favourite of all of Jane Shaw's books: A Job for Susan (1969). This scene from Chapter 2, A Job for Bill, shows the girls discovering Sir Arthur Symes, a.k.a the Wicked Baronet, a.k.a. the Bad Bart, spying on Susan's house, more specifically the room she has baptized as Bluebeard's Chamber. The artist, whose signature appears in the bottom right-hand corner, is Roger Hall, who would go on to illustrate the British editions of the Three Investigators series.

Quote of the Day

"Now then, now then," cried Joe, who was always trying to sound like a proper policeman, "what's all this 'ere?" He ran towards the black figure which was still on its knees - and stopped as abruptly as if he had come up against a brick wall. "Sir Arthur!" he exclaimed.

Susan stopped too, wishing she had never started. Sir Arthur Symes was the terror of the neighbourhood.

Midge unobtrusively kicked the bowler again, a little harder this time, striking a blow for the widows and orphans. Tessa, still clutching the umbrella, looked on in terror at what she had done.

Sir Arthur was obviously in a flaming temper, muttering furiously, "Disgraceful... quiet stroll round the garden... set upon... dangerous young thugs... gang... set upon... HELP ME UP, TAYLOR, YOU FOOL!"

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 3, Encounter with an Ogre.

Quote for the Season

Bill, who had cut holly before, was not quite so enthusiastic. However, he cut away cheerfully enough, climbed into the holly trees, climbed up the steps, reached for the branches with the most berries; while Susan gathered the cut branches and tied them together and piled high the wheeelbarrow.

They had trundled two loads down to St. Francis's where they had been greeted most warmly by the people who were decorating the church and they had decided that another load would be just about enough or there would be no holly left on the trees for horrible Sir Arthur - not to mention the fact that they were getting jolly tired. It was no joke climbing in among all those prickles, Bill pointed out...

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 14, Heigh-ho the Holly.

Jane Shaw Guide: Mr. Egg

Mr. Egg is an abstract metal sculpture by Tertius Smith, an artist in Wichwood Village, and spends some time on display at the Little Gallery. It features heavily in three chapters of A Job for Susan. When Bill takes a cleaning job at the gallery, Susan, Midge and Tessa pitch in to help him. While cleaning the curious egg-shaped work, Tessa knocks it into a bucket of water. After cleaning it, she puts it back on its pedestal upside down and dresses it up in a raincoat and balaclava and gives it its nickname, incurring the wrath of the offended artist. Mr. Smith then arranges to remove his work from the gallery for repair, but Susan thinks he is a thief and calls the police. The furious Mr. Smith removes all his work from the gallery. The ultimate fate of Mr. Egg is not given, and whether Mr. Smith ever managed to sell it remains a mystery.

A Job for Susan (Bettany Press edition)

Now available from amazon.co.uk for the Kindle.

Wichwood (Bettany Press link to Amazon)

A great link for all fans of the Susan books at http://www.ju90.co.uk/dulwich.htm, a map of Wichwood Village (Dulwich) by Elspeth Insch. If you  want to buy the last Susan book, A Job For Susan, from Amazon, click here.

A Job for Susan (spine)

Last week I wrote about Susan's chase around London in search of "rare" 1951 pennies that could be exchanged for up to ten pounds. However, one collectors' site I visited claimed that the 1951 penny is one of the most overrated collectible coins in the world because it isn't really all that rare and certainly not very valuable.

However that may be, the quest for rare coins is an exciting part of the story and the pennies are featured on the spine of the book. The most prominent of the pennies is dated 1967.

The miserly Sir Arthur Symes, known to the gang as the Wicked Baronet, or Bad Bart for short, is up to his old tricks in this story. The front cover, posted in the very early days of this blog, shows him peering into Bluebeard's Chamber at Susan's house. The old crook plays a prominent part in this story, including using Bill for what can only be described as hours of slave labour.

The book, like many Susan stories, is packed: Susan and Tessa are eyewitnesses to a hold-up at the bank, Charlotte comes into her own as an artist and Susan is determined to help Maggie from the art gallery. At the art gallery, a local artist, Mr. Tertius Smith, has tried to go modern and created an awful oval metal ball that the gang nickname's Mr. Egg. And Tessa from St. Ronan's brings an element of fun when she is invited to spend Christmas in Wichwood Village. She dresses up Mr. Egg with Bill's coat and a balaclava, incurring the wrath of the injured Mr. Smith. My favourite of all the Jane Shaw books I've read so far. 

A Job for Susan (blurb)

When I was a very small boy, decimalisation was on its way in and  I can only vaguely remember the old pounds, shillings and pence. It's a bit bewildering for me when I read Jane Shaw books because they talk about something costing five shillings and I find myself wondering, "Is that a lot?" Bill's train set in Susan Pulls the Strings cost eight pounds, which seems to have been a fabulous sum in the early 1950s. But I wasn't around then, so I can't really be sure. I just have to admit that all this old money confuses me. However, the dust jacket of A Job for Susan brought back some distant childhood memories. At the change-over items would often have prices in both old money and the new decimal currency. Fortunately, my copy of the book is not price-clipped, and we can see that you could snap up the last of the Susan series for either ten shillings or fifty pence. My own recollections of decimalisation are distant memories of my dad, like many others, holding on to old money because it might be worth something one day, and my mother at the shops complaining that the new currency had resulted in astronomical price rises. Of course, by 1973 my parents had no old money left. It had either got lost or had been passed off to inattentive shopkeepers by my little brother and me. The old ha'pennies were easily confused with the new 2p coins and we were surprisingly successful at getting an extra bar of toffee or something by mixing them in with other coins. The devious mind of a seven-year-old! Seeing the unclipped dust wrapper brought those memories back... 

Rare Coins in A Job for Susan

A 1951 penny, just like the one Susan received from grumpy Sir Arthur Symes. 

Ever since I first read A Job for Susan and enjoyed the gang's hunt for rare coins, I've been curious about the claims made in the article Susan read at the end of Chapter 8, A Fishy Offer. Entitled SMALL CHANGE THAT IS WORTH A FORTUNE, the article claims that a 1951 penny is worth £10, while a 1950 penny is worth £12, if they are in mint condition and uncirculated. Fair enough. However, there are two other claims that are harder to believe. One is that the 1954 penny was on offer in America for $30,000. This is a lot of money today; back in 1969 it was an even more astronomical figure. And the article also informed Susan that if she found a 1954 half-crown, then she would have "hit the jack-pot".

So how much of all this is actually true? Pennies from 1950 and 1951 change hands for up to £80 if in absolutely mint condition, although they can be acquired for less. One website I consulted said that in the late 1960s, as the way was being paved for decimalisation, a 1951 penny was indeed worth £10. So the claims about the 1950 and 1951 pennies turn out to be true. Now we can turn to the 1954 penny. Again, Jane Shaw had done her homework. Only one penny was struck by the Royal Mint in 1954, and that was for internal purposes. This coin is now in a museum and, were it to come up for auction, it would be expected to fetch between £50,000 and £60,000.  The author had also got her facts right when Susan  found a 1951 penny and took it to a dealer. As the coin was circulated, he gave her only £3 rather than  ten.

The only claim that cannot be substantiated at all is the value of the 1954 half-crown. These change hands on e-bay for as little as one dollar. I decided to do a little further research to try and clear this up. First of all, collectors put coins into categories according to their condition, e.g., PO or PR = poor, UNC = Uncirculated, AU = Almost Uncirculated, VF = Very Fine, FA = Fair. The best possible condition is FDC or Fleur de Coin, which usually refers to what are known as proof coins. These are coins that are specially made for collectors and are usually struck twice. They may also be hand finished. One dealer said that on a good day, an exceptionally fine FDC proof half-crown might fetch as high as £2000. Most other dealers would offer substantially less. Therefore, the claim in A Job for Susan that at 1969 values a 1954 half-crown was worth £12,000 (nearly £90,000 in today's money) and that there was only one known copy in existence is nonsense. I wonder what story lies behind this. Could it be that the year is misprinted and should be 1854 or 1914? Unlikely, since the year is specifically stated twice in the text. Was it some sort of joke to get people rushing to coin dealers with almost worthless old coins? Or was it just a research error or carelessness? We'll never know...

Bluebeard's Chamber

The scene in A Job for Susan when the girls catch Sir Arthur snooping around Bluebeard's Chamber.

Quote of the Day

"But, Susan!" her mother said. "Sir Arthur Symes! Rich! Art collector! Heaven knows what!"

"I know what - just an old crook. Everybody in Wichwood knows he's an old crook," said Susan. "He's a miser, to start with. He'd sink to any depths to save a sixpence-"

"Well, I dare say," said Mrs. Lyle, "but that's a far cry from stealing-"

"We don't know that he actually stole anything," said Susan, trying to be fair. "We can't know that until Maggie has checked tomorrow. But there's soemthing in that room that he's interested in. This is the second time we've seen him hanging round that room, isn't it, Tessa?"

Tessa nodded.

Her father looked at Susan rather helplessly. "I'll go to Charles in the morning," he said. "Before we say anything to the police."

"Och, darling, Uncle Charles won't know anything about him. He's too busy taking temperatures and writing out prescriptions to know what's going on. He never knows the gossip. You talk to Aunt Lucy - she'll tell you about that old crook."

"But how could any normal person do a thing like that?" Mrs. Lyle couldn't get over it.

"He's not normal," said Susan. "He thinks he can do what he likes because he's so rich and important."

Mr. and Mrs. Lyle had come home five minutes after Susan and Tessa had successfully flushed the Bad Bart from Bluebeard's Chamber. They found the girls in a high state of excitement, denouncing the nefarious doings of that old crook, Sir Arthur Symes, clamouring to get into the house to telephone Joe Taylor - at least Susan was.

"Did you see him, too, Tessa?" Mrs. Lyle asked, thinking that her daughter might be suffering from a disordered imagination, a thing that had happened once or twice before in her life.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Lyle! Scuttling away like a great black bat! He's a dreadful old man," said Tessa. "I hit him over the head with my umbrella yesterday," she said, pleased at the recollection.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 6, Strange Behaviour of a Wicked Baronet. Susan's parents are back from South Africa and have their own house in Wichwood Village. Mrs. Lyle has allowed Maggie, who runs the local art gallery, to store some of her things in a room, joking that it's a "regular Bluebeard's Chamber". Maggie thinks it's all worthless junk, but Sir Arthur doesn't agree, and has been trying to break into the room. For his wicked labours, Sir Arthur earned a bash on the head from Tessa, wielding her umbrella.
I think there's a misprint when Susan calls her father Darling; she usually calls him Daddy and I've never heard a Scottish girl address her father like that. There's another funny misprint in Susan Interferes, when the text tells us that Aunt Lucy and Caroline had rooms overlooking Mount Pilatus. Of course, it should have been Charlotte.

Quote of the Day

"You had better keep back," Louella was muttering gloomily, "or you'll all be getting it too."

"Oh, pooh, we've all had mumps," said Charlotte, "don't worry about that-" Susan opened her mouth to say something and quickly shut it again. "-the important thing is, what are you going to do?"

"Do?" said Louella, getting gloomier by the minute, "just lie here and get ruined. Goodness knows when Mrs. Telford will be back, and I'll never be able to get anyone else at this late stage - not anyone who is any good-"

Susan was jumping about from foot to foot, opening her mouth and trying to get a word in: eventually she burst out, "Och, Louella, let us look after your wee shop for you!"

There was a silence, scarcely broken by Midge's usual little sigh. She had long ago given up trying to prevent Susan from indulging in those knight-errant schemes of hers: but that didn't mean she liked them any better. She could see it all - instead of those blissful, peaceful holidays - long-lies in bed, tea in front of the fire, skating, maybe, on the pond in the park, jaunts up to the shops in town, even just glorious peaceful messing about doing absolutely nothing - instead of all that, she could picture what it would be like, day after day of that mad scramble like this afternoon until they were all off their heads. It was no trouble for Susan to rush into the breach and offer her services, she liked bustling about helping people, but it was a different story for Midge- Then she glanced over at Louella, whose poor face was already, Midge thought, beginning to swell, and felt a pig.

Susan, Charlotte and Bill were all speaking at once.

"I could be the delivery boy-"

"Louella, admit, that's a brilliant idea of Susan's, you must let us-"

"Och, Louella, we could easily do it! We'd love it, and you could lie here in peace and get better without a care in the world!"

For what seemed to be the first time for a very long while, Louella did smile a bit at that.

From NO TROUBLE FOR SUSAN, Chapter 2, Crisis. This, the eighth book in the series, and the final book, A Job for Susan, are often mixed up by readers. Both stories take place in Whichwood Village in the run-up to Christmas, and both stories see Susan and the Carmichaels helping out at a struggling woman at a local shop. However, in the later book, the shop is an art gallery, run by Maggie, and Susan's whole family are now living in Wichwood Village and she has Tessa home with her for the Christmas holidays. The books set in Wichwood are my personal favourites and in my opinion A Job for Susan, Jane Shaw's last published work, is the best thing she ever wrote.