PRECIOUS THINGS: PAT CATTIGAN

It's Sunday morning: time for a new Precious Things post, and time for a new experience for me-- because, for once, I'm going to introduce someone about whom I know almost nothing. 

Pat Cattigan and I have been Facebook friends for 2 years, brought together by a shared sense of humour, usually expressed on posts about football. Pat lives in the original Perth, and follows Celtic Football Club. And that's all I know. Even when I asked if he wanted to provide a bio and photo for this post, he replied with the following:

O Grade in Woodwork. Failed footballer still dreaming of becoming a travelling Hobo.

And, to me, that's the great thing about the internet: under normal circumstances, Pat and I would never meet, or know anything about each other, but here we are, and we all get to know something about his tastes, and something near and dear to me. So, ladies and gentlemen, my pal Pat:

Precious Things: Pat Cattigan

Well. What an interesting question. Firstly I no longer have my most precious literary possession, sadly, I lost it some time ago during some move or other. It was an original Jaws paper back which I bought from a local second hand book shop in Perth (Scotland).

Reason I bought it was because I was obsessed with Jaws the movie. And this was at least a year before I got the chance to see it in the summer of 76 at our local cinema. It also infected me with a lifelong passion for reading and movies, the latter has faded a little.

The bookshop I visited during this time as a 10 + youth was an Alladin's cave of books that is too rare these days and the old man who owned would decide whether I could "have"certain books or not. He didn't let me buy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for years coz it was too adult.

I couldn't afford new books as we were poor white Irish immigrant trash. And even years later when I could afford them I still bought books there. At some point I stopped going and one day I went looking for it and it wasn't there. A bit like my Jaws paperback which I still hope to find, even though I know it's gone.