Stirling, John (Editor) (1954)
The Bible, Authorized Version

with drawings by Horace Knowles.
Third impression 1955.
The British and Foreign Bible Society

This is the bible that we were issued with in Form 1 by J. T. Bowen. As far as I can remember, Scripture in that year consisted of an instruction to start reading at Genesis 1,1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, and to carry on reading the bible whilst JTB left the room to carry out his duties as Deputy Head. (Perhaps this is somewhat inaccurate, but there is some truth in it. When I look back at my Form 1 exercise books we seemed to do very little in some subjects such as Scripture, but plenty in others such as Maths). Of course, Form 1 boys found it difficult to stick at the task when he was out and the noise levels would rise. I remember we were all given lines due to this misbehaviour. I can still remember the line, probably due to the number of times I wrote it out: “Deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule”, a line from The Passing of Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, though I had no idea at the time of its provenance!

What I still like about this version of the bible are the line drawings, one on every other of the 1000 pages. The drawings are of animals, people, landscapes or maps of the Holy Land.