Page 32 - Phonebox Magazine November 2014

Book Review
By Oxfam Bookshop, Olney
Tel: 01234 714592
Thelma Shacklady
After writing: ‘And when did you last see your father?’ an affectionate and humorous memoir, Blake Morrison turns his thoughts to his mother who died five years later. ‘I’ll save you all the evidence,’ his father had promised his future wife, and so he had; a multitude of letters – gossipy, lonely, angry, and fearful correspondence, about how they may or may not build a life together after the war. After his death they had remained in his study under a blanket, in a stack of paper carrier bags, and it was only a month before his mother died that the writer had taken them back to London, fearful that they might be destroyed.
It was months before he could bear to look at them, first contacting his cousin Marguerite who still lived in Killorglin, the small Irish town his mother had left for a post in Manchester once she had qualified as a doctor. When he visited her he discovered that his mother was the nineteenth of twenty children born to Margaret O’Shea, thirteen of whom had lived beyond infancy. This was something his mother had never spoken of, having said very little about her life before she married his father, and nothing about the courtship conducted chiefly through letters during the Second World War.
It is these letters that have inspired this second memoir, several of them reproduced verbatim, others viewed by the reader through the eyes of her son. Essentially a private person, overshadowed by her energetic and ebullient husband, Agnes O’Shea, renamed Kim during her courtship, revealed little of herself and her success in the medical field before giving it up to be a wife and mother as her husband, Arthur, demanded. But her letters reveal a much stronger character, ambivalent about marriage, passionate about her beliefs, proud of her medical and surgical skills.
The writer brings to this book the same compassionate humour as that of his previous memoir, but also an element of bewilderment and regret, hinted at in the title. ’Why didn’t you tell me?’ he seems to be saying, and the reader is caught up in his conflicting emotions.
Not simply a personal account of his parents’ courtship, this is also a fascinating piece of social history concerned, as it is, with life during the early years of the 1940s, and the rigid attitude towards women and their rightful place, once married, even when well-educated and competent in their field. Above all it is a most enjoyable read.
32 Phonebox Magazine
Sandra Metcalf
T
his is a collection of essays which, together with a couple of short stories,
reflect on the power of libraries in people’s lives. Writers include Alan Bennett, Zadie Smith, Caitlin Moran, Stephen Fry and Hardeep Singh Kholi, all celebrating the role of libraries to open minds and expand possibilities. Many of their childhood memories of libraries will probably chime with your own experiences – they certainly did with mine. I’ve never really had a ‘claim to fame’ - does the fact that I used the same libraries as Alan Bennett count?
But the importance of this collection lies not in nostalgia but in the urgency of its plea not to take libraries for granted. Public libraries are under threat from political philistines as never before, and unless we all stand up for them, they could be lost to us for ever.
One of the arguments used against the continued funding of libraries is that there is so much information readily available on-line that we don’t need books and libraries. This is as spurious as the ‘cost-cutting’ excuse constantly trotted out - compared with the cost of other services and in comparison with what they deliver for everyone, libraries are already cheap. In a look at the future need for libraries Seth Godin, in his essay, reiterates that `the scarce resource is knowledge and insight, not access to data’. He makes a case for librarians to be regarded not as custodians and administrators, but as guides - providing the tools to sift and understand information and acting as a source of the sort of dialogue which provides insight. Not much chance of getting either of those from a search engine in the immediate future.
This same argument also shows up the idea that libraries can be run by volunteers with no detriment to library users for what it is – a display of ignorance about what libraries and librarians do and the effect they can have on people’s lives.
Other contributors also point out that libraries are many things beyond a mere collections of books. They have been, and should continue to be, gateways to knowledge and experience open to anyone who wants to use them; havens of peace in which a child from a crowded, noisy home can get homework done or where any of us can simply find space to think our own thoughts. They can be places to meet friends, make friends and a place to access help from other local services; even, if you live in Westminster, somewhere to get married!
Originally linked to 19th century movements promoting self-help and self-improvement for the working class, public libraries are still one of the few places providing opportunities for our poorest neighbours to improve their lives and those of their children. Knowledge is empowering and libraries can be a powerful agent in helping people achieve their potential. Perhaps achievement not measured in monetary terms will always be incomprehensible to some. Maybe an educated working class is still, sadly, in the 21st century, considered a threat by some people?
Go on several reading journeys with the range of writers in this book, all of whom value libraries, and even if you already share their convictions, let them broaden your horizons too.