Wonderful article which I enjoyed reading. You made me feel like I was in Barnsley's rather forbidding library back in the 1970s. Hope the article will be online soon so others can read it too.
Read it on the PressReader account I have through the public library of the German city I'm living at this year. It has become sort of home also (my living space here is tiny). That's where I go everyday to work, where I see children picking up the reading habit, where I greet students I never met.
I too found a home in the libraries of Thurnscoe and Bolton on Dearne, as well as Barnsley. First of all devouring Asterix books and then finding the sci-fi and fantasy books. Too poor for a games console like my friends. My library ticket granted me escapism in the best way.
@joanneharris-re.bsky.social Brilliant - remember having to go from Shipley library to Bingley as a child as I'd read all the books in Shipley library that I could at that age. Loved the libraries!
I felt like that about Horwich Library in Lancs. Went to get 5 books every Friday afternoon after School when my dad delivered our farm eggs round to homes in the town. Magical places.. even small ones!
I was horrified to see the ruins of my local library in Doncaster when I returned there for a short trip to see family, a few years ago. It saddened me that no one else would get to know the simple pleasure of opening a book and be transported to another world. My grandkids all have tablets!
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