Uncle by J. P. Martin with illustrations by Quentin Blake

Lots of you know how much I enjoy my book-selling ‘job', but one of the drawbacks (probably the only drawback) is not having enough time to read everything that comes into stock. Uncle is one such book.

Uncle by J. P. Martin with illustrations by Quentin Blake

This is from the introduction… uncle is an elephant. He dresses well, generally in a purple dressing-gown, and often rides about on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car. He lives in a house called Homeward, which is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge, and you’ll get some idea. The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens among them, also switch-back railways running from tower to tower and water-chutes from top to bottom.

I was flicking through the pages trying to get a ‘flavour’ of the story and came across this passage.    

Halfway up the valley is a large enclosure labelled Trade Exhibition. Uncle was in no hurry, and seeing that there was such a crowd, he though he might as well visit this first. They went in,  paying a halfpenny for the whole party at the turnstile. It was quite a good exhibition with a large number of stalls. One was kept by a dull, heavy ox. He appeared to have only one thing on his stall, a box, pink in colour, called BIRTHDAY BOX. Uncle asked the price. “A thousand pounds,” replied the ox in a slow, dull voice, “and I won’t come down a farthing in my price.” There was something about this box that took Uncle’s fancy, and though he thought the price high, he paid it in clean hundred-pound notes. The moment he did so, the ox took from behind the counter a little board marked STALL CLOSED and prepared to leave.  

OK, so now I want to know what was in the box! Was it worth a thousand pounds? Or was it empty? Why does uncle wear a purple dressing gown and ride around in a traction engine? You see how difficult it is listing so many books but not having the time to read them all.  It's no good I'm going to have to read it – I wonder how far I will get before it sells? Or maybe it won’t sell, and I will be able to read it at leisure, only time will tell.

Have you read Uncle or anything else by J. P. Martin?

Uncle is now sold, thank you for your interest.