My mother used to sing me this story at night to send me to sleep. It was a sort of nursery rhyme. She had found it inside a cardboard box her father had given her right before he passed away. ‘This is my life’s passion,’ he had said, ‘do with it as you see fit.’ My grandfather, Aleister Sinclair, was apparently a famous collector.
The box contained information related to Professor Barnacle Goose and was full of handwritten letters, drawings, articles, newspaper cut-outs, diary entries and other pieces of paper in varying states of decay. My grandfather had been collecting information about this 19th century professor for most of his life.
He instructed his daughter to give all his other extensive collections to charity; all bar the Professor’s box: ‘This box must stay in the family,’ he said. My mother promised him it would, but never had the time or the inclination to do anything with it other than store it in the cellar together with some other items belonging to her parents. She was too busy, she said, bringing up seven children by herself.
There was something special, however, about this nursery rhyme: ‘When I opened the box,’ my mother told me, ‘the piece of paper where it was written simply flew out of it and landed on my hand. I read the words out loud and they became embedded on my mind.’
That night, that very same night when my mother first sang me the story of The Flying Galloping Horse, I promised myself that I, Adrian Sinclair, would one day publish the complete works of Prof Goose. And so I finally have. My dear readers: I hope that you enjoy it.
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