I remember the opening of Roehampton Library. The class above me at primary school went to watch when Noel Streatfield declared the library open. I was so jealous. Surely none of them loved books as I did? Surely none of them had worked their way through all the library copies of Noel Streatfield in Putney Library, a bus ride away. After missing the library opening I wrote to Noel Streatfield and she wrote back - a lovely letter that I treasured for years.
Libraries mattered to me even more then than they do now. Libraries were so many things: they held information and imaginative possibilities; they were warm and friendly; they were staffed by librarians who could recommend books I'd never heard of; they had desks, tables and, in Roehampton, sofas on which I could lounge at full-length, exploring book after book.
Libraries mattered most when I was poor. In Bidford-on-Avon the library was a van which arrived once a week for two hours. It wobbled when I climbed up the stairs to enter it. There were no desks or sofas and very little space. Choice of books was limited: there were never more than three in the poetry section (one was always about Shakespeare) but they changed from time to time. I still lurked there, carrying my small baby daughter in a harness that made it impossible for me to browse the lower shelves. Books were more than life - they were the possibility that things could be different. The world of the imagination is also a place of hope.
In times of crisis and falling incomes local governments focus on what they see as their core tasks: rubbish collection, streets, schools and all the services that councils are required by central government to provide. Libraries - and museums, art galleries, leisure centres, theatres - are facing cuts and closures. But hope too is a necessity. Taking these things away damages the poor more than the rich. It's like putting a lever in the gulf between rich and poor and forcing it to ten times its width.
In The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Frank Owen, the main character, says: “What I call poverty is when people are not able to secure for themselves all the benefits of civilisation; the necessaries, comforts, pleasures and refinements of life, leisure, books, theatres, pictures, music, holidays, travel, good and beautiful homes, good clothes, good and pleasant food.”When councils close libraries they deprive the poor of one of the benefits of civilization. They close off imaginative possibilities and stunt lives. If the council burnt books there would be a protest. But books are killed just as surely if they're thrown into landfill, pulped to make motorways, or locked away unread.
I was lucky in the other papers in my session at the conference. My paper wasn't a very good fit but the two other papers were ones I would have chosen to hear. I managed to go first - I was anxious about the media files but they played perfectly - and then settled down to listen.
The other papers were on class and Marxism - but not class from a Marxist perspective. One looked at the ways in which Marx was read and understood in the 1880s and 1890s - and how Marxist ideas were interpreted and modified in novels and other writings of the time. I didn't take many notes but I hope the speaker will let me see a copy of her paper. I'd like to consider how interpretations of Marx influenced the slightly later writers Robert Tressell and Ethel Carnie Holdsworth.
The other paper took as its starting point the film of Alan Sillitoe's novella, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The speaker considered the ways in which Sillitoe's young male heroes asserted their freedom through various acts of resistance, as well as considering the way Arthur Seaton, in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, remains free in his mind while working on the Raleigh production line. This led into a consideration of the way Jean-Paul Sartre interpreted freedom and the suggestion that Sartre saw workers as full human beings, with freedom to think, act and resist. The paper was further enriched by the way the speaker drew on his own experiences from the freedom of a working-class childhood to his sense of not really belonging when he studied for his first degree.
Quite rightly, the discussion centred around questions of class and I wished I'd done a paper on working-class writing to fit more with the panel's themes. I also wished I'd persisted with reading Sartre's La Nausée (Nausea).
The ideas from those papers haunted me for the rest of the day. At the final panel, a discussion of Shakespeare moved into a more general discussion of Literature, Humanism and universities. I found myself getting annoyed as speakers suggested that academics in literature departments had a particular grasp of ethics because of their subject, and found myself speaking out. I tried to draw the distinction between the responsibility to act ethically, which academics share with all human beings, and the special skill which literature academics have, which is the analysis of literary texts and the construction of arguments. Academics may be ethical but this is part of their responsibility as humans and not related to their skills, qualifications or job.
I found myself talking about Franz Jagerstatter who was executed for refusing to fight for the Third Reich - he was more ethical than any academic I've met but this was because he knew how to act rightly in a crisis. He didn't seek or expect fame and he didn't spend his life reading, analysing and publishing books. I can't remember if I went on to point out that a university's cleaners, porters and cooks may be far more ethical than its academics - I hope I did.
At the reception afterwards I was challenged for some of the comments I had made during the conference, though some people also supported my comments on ethics. A few people were concerned that I didn't reckon the study of English Literature was ethical in itself. Even more were concerned with a quick comment I'd made earlier. When one speaker - an enthusiastic scholar and teacher - suggested that she did her job for love not money, I remarked that I did it in order to be paid. For some reason people find that idea very shocking. Of course I enjoy teaching and reading, thinking and writing. But I'm still an employee. I work for money. I wouldn't do my job if I wasn't paid.
But perhaps I write this blog for love. It costs me nothing except time. And it's free to whoever wants to read it and comment.
