Shed Sheds", which argues that a "place of retreat" is a "male necessity" which provides men with solace, especially during their retirement. In contrast, in the novel "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons, Aunt Ada Doom saw "something nasty in the woodshed" and retreated to her bed for half a century. To woodshed, or 'shed, in jazz jargon, is "to shut oneself up, away from the world, and practice long and hard, as in 'going to the woodshed'." The word is recorded in English since 1481, as "shadde", possibly a variant of shade. The word shade comes from the Old English
Stella Gibbons familiar London milieu by setting the story largely in the wilder regions of Canada. This was the last of her books handled by Longmans; thereafter her work was published by Hodder and Stoughton. A journey to Austria and Venice in 1953 provided material for her novel "The Shadow of a Sorcerer" (1955). From 1954, having accepted an invitation from Malcolm Muggeridge, the editor of "Punch", Gibbons provided frequent contributions to the magazine for the following 15 years. Among these was a science fiction story, "Jane in Space", written in the style of Jane Austen. Gibbons, who wrote the introduction to