Robin Hood And His Merrie Men

“Mother!” called a small lad, as he came into the house after a morning’s wandering in the forest.
“Is dinner ready?”

So begins the book, Robin Hood and his Merrie Men published by Dean & Son Ltd. of Ludgate Hill, London, printed sometime in the mid to late 1960’s by Purnell And Sons of Paulton in Somerset. It does not identify an author. But this was the first book I owned and was the start of my life long interest in the legend.

With Richard Greene’s series, The Adventures of Robin Hood, shown weekly on our old black and white television-along with regular airings of Errol Flynn’s classic movie version and Robert and Elizabeth Taylor in Ivanhoe- this young outlaw spent many happy summer holidays with his friends, camping in the local woods, re-enacting sword fights with wooden sticks and dustbin lids for shields. And, of coarse, organising archery contests, with some rather primitive looking bows and arrows!

A few years later The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men was shown at my local Granada cinema, accompanying The Love Bug. I will never forget sitting there completely enthralled with Disney’s live-action version of the outlaw tale. The colour- the story-the characters– the action and of course Joan Rice, totally captivated me. When I got home I begged my parents if I could have some more money to go and watch it again! They eventually relinquished and so began my love of the film and my research into the fascinating legend that inspired it.

Under the label Clement's Collection I will start to list some of the books that I have acquired over the years for my research into the Robin Hood legend and recommend to the reader. Books from Disney’s Story of Robin Hood will eventually be in the Memorabilia section.