Save Our Libraries Day

Today is 'Save Our Libraries Day' here in the UK.  A worthwhile cause I think, don't you?  Here in Stoke we are to lose two libraries at Fenton and Burslem and also the mobile library.  Unfortunately non of the events listed are to be held near here which is a shame because despite the wind and rain I would have gone along to listen to the read-ins and add my voice to the protest.  I have supported my local library this week by taking out two books to read and reserving one on line.

I've always had a great love of books and of libraries. When I was a child a visit to our nearest town to take books out of the library was a huge treat. I remember the large, heavy doors, the brown tiled floor, the whitewashed walls, the tall sash windows letting in light and the dark wooden shelves groaning under the weight of many books; each one unique, each one a ticket to adventure and learning;  a trip to another world.  I loved being able to chose my own books and take them to the desk.  I was fascinated by the boxes of  reader's tickets and the date stamp and ink pads, so much so that I would often play libraries on the table at home with my Mum and Dad's books, torn up slips of newspaper in an old shoe box as the tickets and a hot water bottle top as the date stamp.  As a teenager I read avidly and I think got my love of history from writers like Jean Plaidy, Anya Seaton, Margaret Irwin, Juliet Dymoke, Norah Lofts and Georgette Heyer.  I read anything and everything set in the Regency period and in the time of the English Civil War - this stemmed, I think,  from reading 'Children of the New Forest', 'For the King' and 'Gambol for a Throne' as well as the usual Secret Seven, Little Women, What Katy Did, Wind in the Willows and the 'Wells' series by Lorna Hill.

My tastes in reading have changed over the years as discovering Dorothy L Sayers, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie in my early twenties lead me towards my present love of mystery and crime novels with many genres including biography, classics, modern classics and contemporary literature  in between.

I could go on forever listing books I have read and loved not to mention those I have read without any abiding impressions, those I had to read at school and for 'O' levels, 'A' levels and degree and those I'm ashamed to say that I abandoned after a few pages.

The book I'm reading at the moment  is 'The House at Seas End' by Elly Griffiths an author recommended to me by a friend last year.  I enjoyed her first book  'The Crossing Places' which introduced the characters of Dr Ruth Galloway, cat loving forensic archaeologist and DCI Harry Nelson of the North Norfolk Police Force.  Her second book 'The Janus Stone' was just as fascinating and the characters and story lines introduced in the first book carry through into the second and third novels which are set around Kings Lynn and the North Norfolk coast.

I'd be pretty lost without books;  my life would be poorer if I didn't have them and libraries to borrow them from.  I do buy books too, of course.  I expect we all want to own our favourite books by our favourite authors but I couldn't possibly afford to buy every book I wanted to read.  Libraries are of course, so much more than just books.  Our local library is always busy with people using the computers, school parties listening to books being read to them, book reading groups and other community activities.  Libraries enrich the lives of so many people in many different ways - we need to keep them and help them flourish because once they have gone we will surely never see their like again.