This is one of my favourite places on earth. At least it was between the ages of eight and fourteen. It was (hallowed ground...) the library on Yeading Lane, Hayes. And what a heaven, this was, an escape, a portal into the worlds of John Wyndham, William Golding and Isaac Asimov. The books were well chosen, by the librarian, a lady then in her late 40s who seemed to have a telepathic insight into what I'd like to read next, and would put books especially aside for me. I had, of course, quite a wild crush on her for a year or so. The Tories will have you believe that this kind of small, suburban library is surplus to requirements. But it is places like this all over the land which allow curious working class kids, as I was, to access to books they wouldn't obtain outside the immediate locality – because when you're eight taking a bus to the main library, in my case, in far away Uxbridge, would not have been possible. So under this lot, I'd have been deprived of books for education and importantly. pleasure. I learned to love books and literature in this building. How dare this government be so casually flippant about the importance loose with such small scale, local resources. Grrrr. Schools next, huh?
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