Emergency Penny Dreadful

Would this book have been classified as a 'penny dreadful' ? Or were those the ones about zombies, or whatever the current preoccupations of the supposedly uneducated class?

This one is priced at 2 shillings! Neither of us can remember who bought it, or ever having read it. Doubtless we chose it for the lurid cover, just so we could be smug and ironic...

My mother had a bookshelf in her hallway. When I cleared it out, there was a whole shelf of 1960s Catholic titles, such as 'The Pope, the Pill and the People' and 'Vocation or Vacation?' and a further three or four shelves of classic crime novels: the penguin greens, the garish 1950s covers, Mary Stewart's thrilling romantic suspense titles (Nine coaches waiting, et al). There was so much dust I had to don an old boiler suit and tie a spotted scarf around my hair like a 1940s land girl.

Oh, and there was a bowel cancer testing kit that someone had forgotten to send back. I hope they're all right: it was years out of date. In Scotland it is customary for males to receive one from the NHS on their 50th birthday. My sister's boyfriend put his on display with rest of his cards. Sieze the day, and a' that.

Not such a good day today. Things aren't going very well. I'm mostly feeling rough, coughing, and going round in circles, on every level. Time to take stock, find a different way of doing things.