A Visit to the Library

BY BARRY SHEPPARD

The old Bourne Institute in West Street, now the Pyramid Club, was once also the home of the town library until the service was transferred to more spacious premises alongside the fire station in South Street in 1969. 

I can well remember being taken to the library by my mother to choose my books in the early 1960s. I was terrified of the librarian who sat at a great big grammar school type desk on the far right hand side of the room. She was probably even writing with a quill pen. Certainly the scene was like something out of a novel by Charles Dickens. 

The library was silent and still and woe betide anyone that dared to make a noise and as much as I enjoyed reading, these weekly visits were quite an ordeal. I was glad to scamper down the big concrete stairs to freedom, tightly clasping my books. 

The lady librarian in later years actually turned out to be very nice and most helpful with school projects and I eventually regretted the library's move to its new premises a few years later. Miss Nice Librarian disappeared, presumably retired, to be replaced by a computer and a very accommodating lady who was not quite sure where everything was, but such is progress. 

I still regret the passing of the old library, the climb up the steps and then through the big creaky doors, for it meant that you were going somewhere and the borrowing of books was an event that was to be appreciated and even revered. 

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