How do you read in bed? Sitting up properly with the pillow plumped behind you in a fairly civilised fashion or on your side with your elbow getting crinkled and a little numb before you turn to your other side? Or, do you lay on your back with your arms fairly straight and the book immediately above you?
I think I have always done the latter, although anyone who has seen me thus has always insisted that it cannot be comfortable. As an 8 year old I did occasionally wonder when the blood would drain from my arms and I kept a look out for any incipient whiteness but there never seemed to be a problem.
I was reading ‘We didn’t mean to go to sea’ by Arthur Ransome. (Why are sequels never ever as good as the original book?) and the blood streaming onto the eiderdown plus the multi coloured stars flashing in front of my eyes are what you can expect if you read in bed and fall asleep (because it is not interesting enough) and drop the book, hardback and weighty, onto your nose.
On the corner of my road there was an ambulance station. It was not a place that suggested panic or emergency. In retrospect maybe it was just used for outpatient appointments. Anyway, there were no sirens being blared but there was always a small group of men on duty and the surrounding streets used it as their own unofficial A and E unit or maybe minor injuries would be more accurate.
So, it was an ambulance man (this is long before the term paramedic was in use) who put down his newspaper and his mug of coffee and applied a cold compress to my nose. He assured me and my mother that my nose was bruised but not broken.
The next morning I looked a sight: a swollen nose worthy of a boxing fight, a small cut across the bridge and purple semi circles under my eyes. I still went to school. Did I protest at this or not? My memory doesn’t help me.
However I do remember my teacher asking what on earth had happened to me and me replying that Arthur Ransome had done it. I was rather pleased that she laughed although my explanation did sound rather unlikely.
I still read in bed in exactly the same fashion and have occasionally dropped a paperback on my face, causing little harm. I do though force myself to sit up properly if my choice of book is Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy.