Twice a week is never enough...for the mobile library to visit
Do you remember mobile libraries, those magical vans full of time-travelling books, escapism, and beautiful illustrations?
Do you recall the exciting opportunity to “shop” for new books once or twice a week, without parental “suggestions”?
The mobile stopped yards from our house when I was a child, and even at a very young age I was allowed over the road alone to enter this haven, and I spent hours there every week. On the occasions it didn’t come, usually weather-related or staffing issues, I felt such disappointment that I couldn’t have my regular “fix” of new reading material - this despite growing up in a home with hundreds of books available!
My mum kept our little card tickets safe in a drawer (it was a serious business back then if you lost them!) - different colours for ours and her adult ones, and different colours again for mobile versus the main library in town. We children could only have five tickets compared with mum’s ten, and I longed to be old enough to have TEN new books EVERY WEEK - what an exciting prospect for a reading addict!
For reading IS an addiction, for me at least. When I ran out of my own books, I’d read anything I could get my hands on, even if I’d read it before. My parents’ bookcases groaned with the most eclectic range of titles I’ve ever known, even as an adult. From nautical yarns (dad was a Merchant Navy captain, well-travelled and self-educated) such as “Para Handy Tales”, how to make knots or identify cloud formations, through to mum’s collections of cooking, nature and craft/art-related ones, and her own choice of fiction, we had a library of our own at our disposal. Mum was a French teacher and had several books written in French which she read as often as anything read in English - even these I dipped into in emergencies when I felt I’d read everything else!
Consequently, the twice-weekly mobile library was the perfect place for the bookworm I was always destined to be - I’d read for hours in there, then choose more to take home to be devoured over the next few days. Wednesday to Friday wasn’t a long wait, but Friday to the following Wednesday was dreadful - I felt so deprived and fidgety, just like an addict needing the next hit!
On more than one occasion, especially in the school holidays, I would pick up new books, run home to read them all, and return to the van with minutes to spare before it left to pick another stash to keep me going another couple of days. Certain librarians were a bit disapproving, saying I wasn’t supposed to return them the same day, but had no answer when I said I’d read them all and needed more! Even the crustier librarians melted at that, just telling me to hurry up! Two lovely ladies, one whose name I can’t recall, the other called Pat Oliver, whose children I knew from school, encouraged me to read more, always had suggestions. I’m sure it was Pat who upgraded me to ten adult tickets before the rules said I could - I was in seventh heaven then!
As a teenager, I flitted between Mills and Boon, sci-fi, and horror, often having a mix of all three genres in my weekly haul. Authors such as Georgette Heyer, Isaac Asimov, and Dean Koontz sat comfortably together on my shelf. I remain an avid sci-fi fan to this day, horror less so except those now-classic authors I read from the age of 11: Stephen King (of course!), James Herbert, Graham Masterton, et al.
I don’t know why I felt the need for it, but the mobile library seemed like a second home, a safe place, to me. There I wasn’t told I couldn’t read - my junior school reports said “Anna is often to be found reading at inappropriate times” (what the actual…?!) - or asked to do something to help mum, especially with three younger siblings when dad was away at sea. Don’t misunderstand, I always loved my mum deeply and would do anything she asked, but I also craved time when I was just me - something I didn’t recognise until quite recently.
Mobile libraries were vital, valuable, accessible to all of us. It didn’t matter whether you could afford to buy books or not, you were free to choose what you wanted to read without paying or asking permission, and those marvellous beings in librarian form who ran those vans became friends and allies, without exception. Even as an adult those havens still came to my village and all five of my children loved to go over the years, it was a family ritual for them and me.
It was a slightly different experience as an adult as I often spent as long chatting to the librarian as I did choosing books. It still held that magical feeling for me, like a kind of Narnia or Neverland, entering from my Yorkshire village to a world away from everything else.
Time warps in a library, you see, you feel you’ve only been there twenty minutes or so, but in reality a whole afternoon has passed whilst you were transported to other worlds or back in time.
Sadly, mobiles are no more, at least around here, a sign of the times due to deep and painful cuts to the arts and culture. However, they were transformative places for me, an absolute lifeline at times, and introduced me to so many writers, a world of knowledge, and deepened what was already a genetically-decided love of reading and writing.
Do you have memories of your local library - mobile or otherwise? Was it somewhere you loved to go, did you take your own children, or do different memories come up?
Let me know your thoughts, I’m fascinated to hear other people’s experiences and stories!