Significant Libraries

As Tory cuts threaten to lay waste to public booklending services the length and breadth of the country, Joella has been reminiscing about Significant Libraries of Her Life.  Now, as has been recorded before on these pages, our family has a somewhat chequered history with the institution of the public library, which has on the one hand provided more than one of us with gainful employment but on the other (due to what appears to be a genetic malfunction rendering us singularly and jointly incapable of returning items punctually, even when we actually work in the library the items are from) clawed back nearly as much in fines as it has doled out in wages. 

Being a principled man however, I'm not about to let the small matter of the overdue copy of Breaking into Magazine Writing by William Garrett (date due for return to Newcastle College Library, 9 September 2005) cowering guiltily on the attic bookshelves over there get in the way of an earnest and steadfast defence of a precious civic institution bequeathed to us by far-minded Victorians.  It is with such philanthropic motives in mind that I hereby present my own Top Three Significant Libraries- all of which I would happily chain myself to the shelves of if the bulldozers came to town, and some of which, if matters absolutely reached a head, I would even considering letting have their books back.  Without any further ado, then:

1.  Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central Library (the old 1960s concrete one), Princess Square, NE1

Actually I'm a bit too late galloping to the defence of this one on my white stallion, as it was knocked down by the bulldozers approximately five years ago to be replaced by a vastly superior state-of-the-art effort financed by £billions of European money.  The new one- all sweeping elevators, floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, views across the brave new cityscape and stand-up card-activated internet booths- is for sure a thing of wonderment, but I do harbour a nostalgic fondness for the admittedly monstrous building it replaced, a brutalist six-storey block standing on concrete stilts.  On Saturday mornings, while our mam was presumably somewhere in the background attempting to concentrate on a paperback, me and my sister would spread multicolour editions of Dr Seuss classics over the carpeted floor of the Children's section.  I don't remember taking any of them home, perhaps Dr Seuss was such an exotic commodity in North-East England in 1975 that his works were classified as Strictly Reference Only, or perhaps we just considered them too precious and colourful to be taken from what was clearly their rightful home and carted to the suburbs on a number 12 bus.  Of course now I have said that my mam will appear in the comments box and confess that there have been five copies of 'The Cat With A Hat' stashed in the cupboard under the stairs for the past twenty-five years, but there you are.    

2.  Fenham Branch Library, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

We didn't need a number 12 bus to get to this one, we could walk there, and on Saturday mornings when we weren't in town our mam would send one or both of us down there with a Fenwicks carrier bag bursting at the seams with overdue hardbacks, in the hope that the stern librarians would peer down at our cherubic faces over the imposing reception counter (emblazoned with brass lettering, 'returns' one side, 'items to borrow' on the other) and take pity on us.  On at least one occasion we took fright at the last moment, and instead of staying to find out if the stern librarians would take pity on us, simply hoisted the carrier bag over our shoulders onto the counter and hot-footed it back up Convent Lane.  Or perhaps this only happened once, on a week we were particulary hard-up, and it has gone down in family folklore, I can't be sure.  What I can say for certain is that fifteen years later (during a year spent back at home in between living in Spain and embarking for Manchester and an ill-starred career as a secondary school teacher) I worked there for several months.  The place, predictably enough, seemed about ten times smaller, but it had retained its distinct smell of polished walnut panelling, which I would breathe in contentedly on long evening shifts spent shelving the Colin Bairstows and Barbara Taylor Bradfords, and tending to the idiosyncratic needs of the regulars, including the smartly-dressed old bloke who came in every night to renew his supply of generic hardback Westerns (they were like Mills and Boons except with a yellow cover instead of a pink one, and had their own shelf, in between the Large Print and the Urdu Fiction).  

3. All the other branches of Newcastle upon Tyne City Libraries

Because I worked in all of them during that year in the early 90s and discovered how each one had its own identity and customs.  At Jesmond, which was hexagonal and futuristic with plate glass windows, a local cat had moved in and would spend the afternoons asleep in the baking heat under the Sporting Non Fiction shelves.  At Moorside, the facility was shared with an inner-city Primary School and every morning a classful of mostly Asian children would file in and untidy the Junior section, much to the consternation of a resident librarian who I came to suspect of Aryan tendencies.  At Heaton, the tranquility of the park-side setting would be broken once a week by the arrival of a coachload of old ladies who would ransack the Mills and Boons- one old dear in particular had a permanent glint in the eye and would ignore the standard issue pink hardbacks in favour of the Cherry Red covered special editions, which (I discovered, during a quiet afternoon spent on a personal research project) had the really dirty bits in.

So, Newcastle's libraries- worth taking to the barricades for, no?  I bet the libraries of your youth are too, if only because they smell pleasingly like they did thirty years ago, and because you've got a mouldy Len Deighton under the sink which you really will get round to taking back one of these days so don't think you won't because you will.  Top threes (or fives, or ones) in the comment box if you will, form an orderly queue, items for return on this side only please, can you not read the sign on the desk?  Thank you.

Comments

[Izzy]

Dr Seuss under the stairs, Fenwicks carrier bags full of long overdue books! As the mother in question I deny everything, but as a life-long Library addict I will be with you at the barricades. Life without our Public Libraries is unthinkable. For decades they have provided a place of calm and sanity, a refuge from the crazy mixed up world outside. They are not a luxury to be axed by the Tories.They are not a sad collection of paperbacks to be run by well-meaning volunteers in village halls. They are a rich part of our cultural heritage built up over the decades by dedicated, professional people and we would be greatly impoverished without them.I could go on and on and on but you get my drift....
The Mam in Question.

[Joella.blogspot.com]

But did they ever let you off the fine? I am on tenterhooks!

Lovely post. Lovely libraries. And I am 100% with your Mam on the sanity thing. I am off to borrow a Western in the morning. I had forgotten all about them!

[looby]

He he... I remember those racy red and black novels which somehow pulled off the difficult trick of making sex respectable for women library members of certain age.

I feel a similar affection for Morecambe. Its unusual 70s design is mentioned as "an asset to the town" in Pevsner, although "assets to the town" in Morecambe is not a crowded field.

[Dominic]

Great Moor library. stockport Central library. Manchester Central Library. In the days of signing on and being skint it was great to have somewhere warm to sit around without having to spend any money. Everyone is equal in the library. Somewhere quiet to study, apply for jobs, read the paper, stare into the middle distance. Up until my mid twenties i was in the library every week and now in my late thirties i'm back again with my children.

[abby]

Eeee yes, it's hard to know where to begin but I'll pick just one thing. And this is that at the top of our street every other Monday (I can never remember which one it is) for 2 hours precisely, there is an actual mobile library van parked at the top of our street in the less posh part of Gosforth. And I nearly keeled over with pure delight upon seeing it for the first time because I thought the Tories would have gotten rid of such things long ago. It is a thing of great beauty, a bit like a milk float.

[John]

I also have a special regard for mobile libraries or as we called them in the suburban wastelands of Long Island New York USA, the bookmobiles. Just a trailer with a couple of dozen books in them and a peculiar smell to add presence, but who knows how many secretly thrilling literary lives they instigated?