The Worst Witch
Jan. 17th, 2022 12:27 amI’m starting a to read (and then write about here) The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy. I’ve decided to do some minor things differently from when I was reading and writing about Gobbolino - I’m not sure what is and isn’t going to work. I’m very much hoping you all will comment and that we can get some actual discussion going.
I’ve chosen the Worst Witch because I loved it as a Small. I remember having at least the first few chapters read to me as a bedtime story but also have a strong memory of it being one of the first chapter books that I read myself (this distanced in time I’m not sure if that was two separate readings of if my Parents started reading it and then I got hooked and just had to finish it. (My flavour of dyslexia meant I was slow starting to read but then once I grasped the basics I improved very quickly and zoomed up the “reading age” charts even though my spelling remained delayed). I also remember meeting the author at a “Puffin Exhibition” sometime in the early 1980’s and finding that very exciting. (Presumably that was either 1980 when The Worst Witch Strikes Again was published or 1982 when A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch came out) She was a real person! And even though she was a proper grown-up and therefore impossibly old she was also noticeably younger than my parents and somehow that made the idea of writing or other creating seem more achievable.
Although I didn’t go to boarding school my (local, state, mixed sex) Primary School was quite traditional (and indeed old - it celebrated its centenary in my first year there) and I could see a lot of similarities with Cackle’s. And between school, church and my extended family structure I lived in quite a feminine world (obviously there were almost as many boys as girls in my class but the teachers were mostly women. At church Dad was the Minister but the Church Secretary and at least two thirds of the Elders were female) which also resembled Cackle’s. I often day dreamed about magic and very much identified with the untidy, accident prone often scolded Mildred.
Later in the 1990s as a newish adult I nostalgically read The Worst Witch All at Sea when came out and watched the ITV series based on the books (and it’s underrated follow up Weirdsister College). I came back to the books again as an Aunty and the more recent BBC/Netflix series (which expands the non magical parts of the Worst Witch World in interesting ways). I was very sad when Jill Murphy’s death was announced last year.
A couple of the things I’ve decided to do differently for this reading is to have randomly selected chapter themes and to concentrated on just the Reading Practices of Lectio Divina and PaRDeS. I think having to look for a randomly-selected theme will encourage me to look more closes - when I’m in the Floo Network group I sometimes find that the themes chosen by other group members that I initially don’t think will be very promising turn out to be unexpectedly rich (obviously sometimes none of us are able to find much for a particular theme!). And when I’m reading by myself (although hopefully in companionship with your comments) it’s particularly good for me to have my outlook stretched. I put the entire HPST master themes list into a picker wheel and let it choose a theme (and an emergency back up just in case any of them are really unworkable) for each chapter.
The reason I’m focusing down on just two Reading Practices is that it’s quite a short book (just ten chapters) and cycling through all the possible Practices wouldn’t do any of them justice. I do particularly like Lectio and PaRDeS (I don’t have a favourite practice as such because they all have richness, and times when they are more or less applicable), they both work reasonably well as solo practices (obviously Havruta is all about working in a pair and even though it’s perfectly possible to do Sacred Imagination alone I find I get significantly more out of it in a group) and as similar, but intriguingly different, 4 step structures I think it will be interesting alternating between them. I am also going to choose a sparklet from each chapter to do a whole book Floralegia at the end.
I’m choosing to simplify the summaries of each chapter - trying to stick to the 9 sentence and 3 sentence structure was a fun challenge but I felt it got a bit distracting for me. Obviously without that structure I might find it challenging to simplify enough and not just tell you the whole chapter and my commentary on it! So I’m particularly interested in your thoughts about how that’s working for you as readers.
I don’t think the structure of the Blessings needs to change (I find it surprisingly powerful for such a simple concept) - I’ll stick with choosing one obvious and one less obvious (at least less obvious to me) character to bless from each chapter.
It’s got a bit late now so I’ll write up Chapter 1 through the theme of Humility in the next day or two. As ever I’m interested in all your thoughts about the book or the theme or the Practices - and about any Sacred Reading and other practices you may be doing yourselves.
Have you read (or watched - apparently as tell as the two television series there was a late 80’s film which I’ve not seen) The Worst Witch? Did you like it? Was it meaningful to you? Or do you find it a strange book to pick for Sacred Reading?
I’ve chosen the Worst Witch because I loved it as a Small. I remember having at least the first few chapters read to me as a bedtime story but also have a strong memory of it being one of the first chapter books that I read myself (this distanced in time I’m not sure if that was two separate readings of if my Parents started reading it and then I got hooked and just had to finish it. (My flavour of dyslexia meant I was slow starting to read but then once I grasped the basics I improved very quickly and zoomed up the “reading age” charts even though my spelling remained delayed). I also remember meeting the author at a “Puffin Exhibition” sometime in the early 1980’s and finding that very exciting. (Presumably that was either 1980 when The Worst Witch Strikes Again was published or 1982 when A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch came out) She was a real person! And even though she was a proper grown-up and therefore impossibly old she was also noticeably younger than my parents and somehow that made the idea of writing or other creating seem more achievable.
Although I didn’t go to boarding school my (local, state, mixed sex) Primary School was quite traditional (and indeed old - it celebrated its centenary in my first year there) and I could see a lot of similarities with Cackle’s. And between school, church and my extended family structure I lived in quite a feminine world (obviously there were almost as many boys as girls in my class but the teachers were mostly women. At church Dad was the Minister but the Church Secretary and at least two thirds of the Elders were female) which also resembled Cackle’s. I often day dreamed about magic and very much identified with the untidy, accident prone often scolded Mildred.
Later in the 1990s as a newish adult I nostalgically read The Worst Witch All at Sea when came out and watched the ITV series based on the books (and it’s underrated follow up Weirdsister College). I came back to the books again as an Aunty and the more recent BBC/Netflix series (which expands the non magical parts of the Worst Witch World in interesting ways). I was very sad when Jill Murphy’s death was announced last year.
A couple of the things I’ve decided to do differently for this reading is to have randomly selected chapter themes and to concentrated on just the Reading Practices of Lectio Divina and PaRDeS. I think having to look for a randomly-selected theme will encourage me to look more closes - when I’m in the Floo Network group I sometimes find that the themes chosen by other group members that I initially don’t think will be very promising turn out to be unexpectedly rich (obviously sometimes none of us are able to find much for a particular theme!). And when I’m reading by myself (although hopefully in companionship with your comments) it’s particularly good for me to have my outlook stretched. I put the entire HPST master themes list into a picker wheel and let it choose a theme (and an emergency back up just in case any of them are really unworkable) for each chapter.
The reason I’m focusing down on just two Reading Practices is that it’s quite a short book (just ten chapters) and cycling through all the possible Practices wouldn’t do any of them justice. I do particularly like Lectio and PaRDeS (I don’t have a favourite practice as such because they all have richness, and times when they are more or less applicable), they both work reasonably well as solo practices (obviously Havruta is all about working in a pair and even though it’s perfectly possible to do Sacred Imagination alone I find I get significantly more out of it in a group) and as similar, but intriguingly different, 4 step structures I think it will be interesting alternating between them. I am also going to choose a sparklet from each chapter to do a whole book Floralegia at the end.
I’m choosing to simplify the summaries of each chapter - trying to stick to the 9 sentence and 3 sentence structure was a fun challenge but I felt it got a bit distracting for me. Obviously without that structure I might find it challenging to simplify enough and not just tell you the whole chapter and my commentary on it! So I’m particularly interested in your thoughts about how that’s working for you as readers.
I don’t think the structure of the Blessings needs to change (I find it surprisingly powerful for such a simple concept) - I’ll stick with choosing one obvious and one less obvious (at least less obvious to me) character to bless from each chapter.
It’s got a bit late now so I’ll write up Chapter 1 through the theme of Humility in the next day or two. As ever I’m interested in all your thoughts about the book or the theme or the Practices - and about any Sacred Reading and other practices you may be doing yourselves.
Have you read (or watched - apparently as tell as the two television series there was a late 80’s film which I’ve not seen) The Worst Witch? Did you like it? Was it meaningful to you? Or do you find it a strange book to pick for Sacred Reading?
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