Worzel Gummidge Again - Barbara Euphan Todd

What could be nicer than a Puffin with this cover? Worzel Gummidge the scarecrow dressed as Santa Claus, sitting backwards on a pink cow? The cow's got a wreath of mistletoe about her ears and she's trampling up a snowy hill to join the other scarecrows under the moonlight.

For those of us of a certain again Worzel means the TV show with Jon Pertwee and Una Stubbs: a show that was creepy and jaunty in equal measures. But the books are definitely worth rediscovering. They come up quite fresh, actually - especially the Christmassy sections of this first sequel from 1937.

"Everyone, even Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton and even Tommy Higginsthwaite, was too surprised to speak. It didn't seem as though it could possibly be true. Cows do not come to Christmas parties and stand swishing their tails and mooing. Neither do two dozen people usually share the same dream.

"'Have to be off now,' said Gummidge.

'Still nobody spoke. Nobody moved either except for the rabbit which suddenly hopped from John's pocket and went lolloping across the floor to join scraps of red flannel and tufts of wool in Worzel Gummidge's dressing-gown pocket. He patted it gently, then picked up the empty sack, sat stride it and grasped the cow's tail.

"'Anybody else coming for a ride?' he asked. 'Anybody coming to my Christmas tree?'"

The world of Euphan Todd's original books seems much darker and more chaotic than that of the TV show. There's no paternalistic Crowman to save the day in the end. Worzel and his wife (!) are shambolic and homeless, rattling about Scatterbrook Farm with their few possessions, forever falling apart at the seams. There's some funny stuff with things like Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton's wig - the usual kind of slapstick japes - but there's something sad in these books, too. A sense of being displaced, unwelcome, and at the mercy of the elements.

Glad to see that 'A Pile of Leaves' has been reading Puffins too. 'The Giant in the Snow' is a lovely novel, John Gordon's snowy fantasy set in 60s Norwich - which I bought in a charity shop in that very city. (Wonderful seasonal Spotify playlist on 'A Pile of Leaves' at the moment, too!)