Shhhh!!..
Books, reading, a hobby I took part in, on a regular basis - when I was a child that is..

It's bizarre how you read loads when you're a kid is'nt it?

Yeah I know there are those of you who still read on a regular basis, but there are people like me who only read when travelling long distances, checking out the Christmas telly, or simply because we've given up hope on trying to figure out how the DVD player works and finally resorted to taking reference from the instruction manual.

One of my favourite places was our local library, I was a resident bookworm there - it was my little sanctuary from the real world when I was in junior school, and I read everything and anything that took my fancy at the time, be it fiction or even the world atlas, just to see where these great places were that you only hear about in movies.

I have fond memories of reading the 'Create Your Own Adventure' books, Asterix and Obelix, The Adventures of Tin Tin, and Charlie Brown just to name a few. I loved encyclopaedias, books on magic, books on drawing (a hobby that I still have a passion for - as any of you who've seen my previous posts will be more than aware of) and the old Commando comic series.

Survival manuals kept my imagination ticking over with adventures in jungles, surviving earthquakes and setting traps for all manner of wildlife - even if the closest to the reality was probably catching a slug in an old paint can filled with beer.

I was the kid who never returned a book on time, always borrowed more than was humanly possible to read within the 3 day lending period, and the one who sat in a corner chuckling to myself like a loon whilst reading 'Professor Branestawm' by Norman Hunter. I loved Roal Dahl's 'George's Marvellous Medicine' and 'The Twits'

I had a thing for pulp fiction horror novels too - usually followed by nightmares containing huge spiders, man-eating ants, and haunted houses. Scary for any 10 year old, believe me..

Never got into Terry Pratchett - Why, I don't know..

Then I discovered my main library - the local Town Centre library where 'the big books' are kept, the Reference section on the top floor, shrouded in secrecy with it's 'Absolute Silence' rule and huge shelves containing historical records, old plans of the town and musty smelling books with leather covers containing nothing but lots of really complicated words that I could never pronounce.

Then, for some reason I simply stopped going.

I think the last time I was in a library was when I was about 15 years old. I'm 36 now, and only the other month I was walking my son home from the park when I happened to come across a small library in our village, if you blinked you'd miss it, but it caught my son's eye regardless.

"What's that daddy?" he asked.

"That's a library son" I replied, "What's it for?" asks the boy..

"It's a place, where few go, but many have been, It's a place where knowledge is kept within it's shelves and adventures are born.." says I.

Right there, right then, I was ten years old again, my curiosity to the buildings contents entered my mind, and my desire to search through their shelves for an unread adventure book was reborn, and those images of huge maps of lands far away returned.

"Can we go there?" asks my son, "Sure, we'll go this weekend.." I reply.

I keep trying to get round to taking my son there, but the fucking thing's never open..
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 15:05, 1 reply)

Come on!
How come you've not taken him there yet??

What are you waiting for??

Of course they're open at the weekend - JFDI
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 13:57, closed)