Book Worm
Susan Clarkson
In the 1950s, six of us lived in a back-to-back house in Bradford. We were four adults and two children. My mum, my eleven year old sister and myself, aged five, had gone to live with our auntie and two uncles not long after the death of my dad.
There were always books around the house, mainly library books, and books which had been passed on to various members of the family by other relatives or friends. One such relative was Auntie Anne, who was actually a member of a book club and so she used to pass on books she had read onto my Auntie May, my mum’s sister with whom we lived, who was a keen reader.
One such book was the newly translated English edition of “Doctor Zhivago”. This novel by Boris Pasternak, had been banned in the Soviet Union and had been translated, first into Italian and then into English. It received a great response in Europe and the U.S.
I was in my early teens when this book first appeared in our house. I was already an enthusiastic reader but there was a great deal in the novel that I didn’t understand. However, it woke in me a love for the idea of Russia and all things Russian. The novel opened up for me not only this mysterious and secret land but also an awareness that very often people who keep their independence of thought and action, as did Yuri Zhivago, generally suffer for it.
Around the same time we acquired a television and I can remember watching a series of Shakespeares history plays,, starting with “Richard II” and ending with “Richard III”. This project has been repeated several times since on TV but I do remember very vividly this first one in black and white which was called “An Age of Kings”. I certainly understood very little of Shakespeare’s poetry but I was fascinated by the stories and by listening to the language.
As a result, one day, I found myself near a secondhand bookstall in Kirkgate Market. I picked up and put down several books until I came across a heavy, dark blue volume, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.’ It was quite dogeared and a bit grubby but I spent my pocket money on it – two shillings and sixpence – and took it home. To everyone else it just looked like a tatty old book but to me it was wonderful. I was able to read some of the speeches that I’d heard on the television production and began to understand them a little more. I also delved into some of the other place, the ones I had heard of, “Romeo and Juliet”, for example, and “Hamlet”.
Before discovering Pasternak and Shakespeare, Auntie May had taken me to my first library, Manningham Library on Carlisle Road. I thought it was absolutely wonderful, not just the books but also the setting which was quite ornate and light. I loved walking around the brightly coloured shelves of books in the children’s section, knowing I could choose one to take home.
I joined Manningham Library as a junior reader but later on progressed to the Bradford Lending Library in Darley Street.
This library was opened in 1878, having moved from the original library on Tyrell Street which was opened in 1872. As far as I can recall, there was a big heavy door leading into the library from Darley Street. I have a feeling that this was the only frontage because as soon as you went through the door, you were in a dimly lit hallway with a large staircase in front of you. Usually, I went to the lending library on the first floor to search the shelves for my next book.
I recently found a photograph, on a local history website, of the lending library in Darley Street. It was packed with people standing in between the huge bookcases choosing their books.. The photo was taken in 1962 so perhaps I was one of the readers!
At that time all the books were hardback books and many of the older ones were beautifully bound, thanks to the skills of the librarians. By the time I started to use the library newer books retained their original dust covers which were protected by plastic so the shelves were a combination of dark book spines, with gold lettering and much more colourful volumes. The light came in from beautiful arched windows, a bit like the ones we can still see on the Wool Exchange, but there were also lamps hanging from the ceiling. I loved being in that building, searching for, finding, and always leaving it with a new treasure.
Wherever I moved to a new town or city, I always found the nearest library and joined. As well as remembering particular libraries, I find that I call to mind certain books which I found, borrowed and read. For example, it was in the library at Sittingbourne, a busy town in Kent, that I first found the novels of Melvin Bragg. This was in the 1970s, and he had only written two or three books but I really enjoyed these stories which were a mixture of social history and an evocation of place, in Bragg’s case, Cumbria. I still read a Lord Bragg novel, now and again.
After Sittingbourne, I moved to the mining village of Wath upon Dearne in South Yorkshire. In the cosy, welcoming library, next to the baker’s, I found a huge scholarly volume in defence of Richard III, and I date from that time my devotion to this much maligned monarch. I even started to write a story about Richard as a child in Middleham, but nothing came of it.
In Oxford, I joined the local public library. My sight was failing rapidly and I depended on audiobooks and large print books. I ordered a large print version of “War and Peace”. This comprised seven large volumes which were kept in the store, and when I went to collect them from the library, there was great amusement among the library staff. Occasionally I used to put one of these huge volumes in my bag and go and sit on a bench in Christchurch Meadow, on the bank of the Thames, and lose myself in the lives of Natasha, Pierre, Andrei, Maria and Nikolai.
While living in Oxford I was able to use the Bodleian Library. A good friend worked in the Disability and Inclusion office at the University and often asked me to join teams looking at disability issues in the different buildings and colleges, especially issues those connected to visual impairment. One of the perks of this consultation work was access to the Bodleian and a readers’ ticket.
Technology for the use of visually impaired people was in transition at that time, around 2006, and the library possessed a huge piece of equipment which readers with limited sight could use in order to read books. The text to be read was placed underneath a light and on a large screen it appeared magnified several times. I was allowed to use this reader and to be perfectly honest I’m not sure how many other people did. At the time I was doing a course on Dickens at the Oxford Department for Continuing Education and so I was able to do research in the library, accessing books and using this extremely heavy and cummbersome machine.
All I had to do was to call the library and book a slot and when I arrived the reader was set up waiting for me. The staff were friendly, accommodating and fascinated by the machine.
It gave me a great thrill to walk through the imposing quadrangle leading to the main entrance, Duke Humphry’s library in front of me. The buildings in the quod glowed with a rich honey colour. On entering the library I was able to use my card at the turnstile climb the ancient wooden staircase to the first floor and then enter the calm and brightness of the reading room, finding my special desk. Before beginning reading, I would look out of the large windows overlooking the spectacular Ratcliffe Camera and fantasise that I really was a student at the University of Oxford.
One thing I was never called upon to do was to take the solemn undertaking required by all uses of the library. It would have been fun to do that. I still enjoy reading the text to myself:
“I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.”
Live Adventurously 