A few weeks back, I found some library books we'd taken out pre-Covid, and decided it was probably about time to return them. As Sam and I were heading into Huddersfield, we stopped off at the tremendous building above, the Huddersfield Library and Art Gallery. It's easy to take a building like that for granted, as I'm sure many of the town's residents do, but I try not to.
As we took the steps down to the children's library in the basement, Sam told me he expected the library would be really busy on a Saturday afternoon.
"I doubt it," I said.
"But why not?" he asked.
"Because a lot of people don't read very much these days, buddy. Not like they used to."
"But why wouldn't they? Reading is brilliant!"
Pride, love, admiration... and a twinge of sadness. Just another day in the life of a dad.
Libraries gave us power...
I'm with Sam.Love libraries
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely thing for Sam to say. We spent a lot of time in our library when DD was little but I must admit to not having been for many years. I think I read more now but just too much competition from cheap kindle downloads and non-fiction info all online.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful library - reminds me of some of the cinemas I wrote about a while back - art deco style.
Out of the mouth of babes. They're currently rebuilding ours; when it reopens I for one will be there to renew my library card. I hope there'll be a few Sams in there.
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