Wednesday 9 February 2011

The Unkindest Cut?

With more than four hundred libraries threatened with closure at the moment, I just want to add my voice to all the others raised in protest (thank you Philip Pullman and everyone else who has spoken up with passion and commitment).

The origins of the word educate come from the Latin, ducere, meaning to lead.  Your education leads you to knowledge and for many people  the local library is the gateway, and often the road, on which to travel.


They house books and should therefore be a natural navigation point for anybody interested in writing.

I remember many years ago there used to be a library attached to the Shaw Theatre on the Euston Road in London -- I'm not sure if it has survived previous rounds of cuts -  and I tucked myself up with what was obviously a fantastically absorbing read, because when all the lights went out, I simply assumed that it was some kind of power cut and went on to the next chapter.

Eventually, I surfaced properly, put the book back on the shelf and headed for the exit, only to discover that the library had been locked up and everyone had gone home.  I was a bit disconcerted, but I wouldn't have minded spending the night there -- it had a tranquil and inviting atmosphere, comfortable chairs and shelf upon shelf of lovely books.  However, I was supposed to be in a play that evening, so I started hammering on the doors and after about an hour, a security guard came and let me out.

That library, and all the others in towns and cities up and down the country, was a place in which to be rapt, transported and entranced; a place of infinite variety and possibility, and in my case, sometimes a home from home. I was perfectly content at the prospect of being locked into one, but the prospect of us all, collectively, being permanently locked out of four hundred of them, dismays and horrifies me.

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