I made a flying visit to my home town at the weekend, the cathedral city of Hereford, and while there was no time to ransack the secondhand book shops, I found time to peruse mum and dad's bookshelves. I made some great discoveries.

First of all, I gathered up a load of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five books from the attic, which are going down a treat with my eight-year-old. I also bagged a Topper annual and a Football Association annual, both dated 1980. Then I turned to more adult matters. There was a large selection of Pan edition Nevil Shute paperbacks, but I didn't want to be too greedy so I selected three. The first was Marazan, written in 1926, the author's third novel. Ruined City from 1938 and No Highway, published in 1948, also found their way into my overnight bag. Another Pan paperback I purloined was Victor Canning's The Scorpio Letters. My dad swears by Canning but I have yet to give him a try and I thought the cover illustration of a prized-open watch was intriguing. For good measure, I also grabbed Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess from the attic, a book I don't ever remember seeing before.

The teaching manual published by Bantam, came out just before Fischer's historic world championship match against the Russian Boris Spassky in 1972. Finally, from the very top shelf in the sitting room, I removed The Spare Time Book, by Tony Gibson and Jack Singleton, published in paperback by Penguin in 1961, a revised edition of the first book brought out by Gollancz in 1955. Sir John Hunt, the leader of the first successful ascent of Everest, and Sir Roger Bannister, provide introductions, which shows you just how dated it is. But the passage of time is what gives these "how to" manuals their charm. The top item in the book's all-purpose emergency travelling kit, for vagabonds and foreign correspondents, among others, is an enamel jug. In the jug, which you can use for shaving, you can store various items including a length of strong picture cord, a candle end and some Swan Vestas and several blanket pins. There will be no room for a gas cape, apparently, although I'm not entirely sure what that is. It appears that life was a lot simpler in the 1950s, or was it? Please discuss.