Posted by Mike Field on September 11, 2016 at 16:45:58 user mikefield.
In Reply to: Re: The 'My Word' stories - was 'Secret Water' News posted by Jon on September 11, 2016 at 05:49:47:
This particular volume does indeed have an Introduction and it is to this omnibus volume itself, not just to the first book ('Kayak') of the four that it contains. (None of the individual books has its own introduction, at least not in this volume -- each just dives straight into the stories.)
The introduction commences --
Readers who have never heard the radio programme in which these stories were first brought forth are due a word of explanation.
and concludes --
... for a great many years now we have been faced each week with the agony of having to knock out a reasonably coherent story based upon a given quotation -- however unpromising the quotation's syllables appeared at first sight.
This volume is a final medley of the squeaks produced by the pips being thus squeezed.
In the body, the authors mention that in the very first show the two quotations used were "Let not poor Nellie starve", and "Dead, dead, and never called me Mother!", and I guess that's what you might have been remembering. All in all, I think my omnibus volume is the one you've been thinking of.
(My copy looks like this one, a 1984 reprint, but without the white pull-quote or logo at the bottom.)
Post a followup (Only if you agree to the Terms and Conditions)