"Lost" books

When I was a child, I borrowed most of the books that I read from the local library, and it seldom occurred to me to make a note of titles or authors. Consequently, many years later, I have vague, nostalgic memories of books that made a great impression on me, but I can’t find them. There was one in particular that would swim back into my memory from time to time: something about a girl and a strange pool in a wood, and the god Dionysus. I could remember, with a shiver, the “piping in the chimneys”. But what was it? Imagine my excitement when I read a description on the website of Girls Gone By publishers http://www.ggbp.co.uk/ and realized that it must be "Pandora of Parrham Royal" by Violet Needham. I ordered it immediately and have just read it. Sure enough, here was my lost book! It is actually a strange novel, not necessarily aimed at children. Some of the language requires a wide vocabulary and a high level of comprehension. (Do we, I wonder, tend to spoon-feed children nowadays with very simple language?) Anyway, it’s a gripping story set in a country house in 1946, and I realized that it has certainly influenced my own novels, in which I start with an ordinary, everyday setting and then introduce a hint of something uncanny and weird.

I have another “lost book”. Will I ever find it, I wonder? Something about an extraterrestrial, captured and kept in a building – maybe a tower? – in a locked enclosure. Two children investigate. I think it was probably written in the 1950s, and if anyone can track it down for me, I shall be most grateful.