Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this Mr Bond. Like several members I was under the impression that Richard Davies was going to talk about Ian Fleming and his famous creation.
Richard, however, introduced us to an entirely different Mr Bond – Ruskin Bond, a writer who was born and grew up in India. Very few of us – if any – had heard of him but we were enthralled by Richard’s talk about this writer who is well-known and revered in India but not heard of here. He writes mainly for children but his books are well worth reading by adults.
A lover of Kipling, Richard told us how he had come to discover Bond while re-reading ‘Kim’ and its preface to the book which mentioned another writer, Peter Hopkirk, and thus led him to Ruskin Bond.
This is one of the joys of the Society – speakers who lead us book-lovers to writers we would never have encountered.