The Public Libraries Act 1850 gave local boroughs the power to establish free public libraries creating an enduring national institution that provided universal free access to information and literature. I clearly recall my introduction to the local library as a six-year old by my primary school teacher on a Saturday morning. She knew my love of reading and understood that the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica were much appreciated on the estate as a source of firelighters and skins for roll-ups when the Rizlas ran out. My enrollment in the library was accompanied by her cautionary advice never to let others know I could read and always keep my books hidden from public view.
You entered the library through oak-paneled swing doors and were confronted by a high wooden pulpit above which was a notice bearing the command “SILENCE” and in which sat the chief librarian, a lady of indeterminate age, with a visage that could sink battleships. The wooden shelves were crammed with books of all sorts. There was a separate newspaper room where all the quality dailies and magazines were available to read. In here, during the winter months, you would find the poor homeless souls, reading the papers and enjoying the warmth. The librarian was a woman of steel, in the Thatcher mould, but she was also kind and compassionate to the deserving. There was a separate children’s room full of treasures by the likes of Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton. Everyone was considerate of other library users. Nobody spoke above a whisper. It was a quiet, peaceful temple of literature ruled over staff who enforced the required standards of behaviour. I have seen the chief librarian physically eject, through the unopened swing doors, a man who smelled of alcohol. Gone before he could start causing trouble. This library gave me a haven for many years.
Then to the present. The chief librarian is long gone along with the newspapers and magazines and most of the book collection. There are now rows of computers, where people used to quietly sit and read books or newspapers. The occupants are eastern European or recently arrived culturally enriching persons welcomed to our shores by successive governments. None, probably, have ever paid one penny in council tax. It’s like the fucking Tower of Babel with the all the booshka-booshka, jabber-jabber, from the cunts using Skype or enlightening each other on the UK benefits laws. In one corner, sat on the floor, is a group of local intellectuals, hoodies pulled up, whilst they arrange their collection of the latest recreational drug over their mobile phones.
There are hardly any books left in the library collection. Notices are everywhere advertising coffee mornings, English language classes, zumba fitness sessions etc all available at the library. Anything and everything that should not be held in a library. And notices asking users for donations of their old books because the library can no longer afford to buy new ones. But of course they can afford a free translation service for Cantonese, Urdu, Portugese, blah blah blah speakers.
The Public Library. R.I.P.
Nominated by Fimbriations
The London Marathon.
