It's quite a sad story about the lifts in the Central Library, but it's to be replaced by another more 'modern' building in a few years, so even the leaks in the flat roof don't get repaired - when it rains, you have to do a slalom to avoid the buckets catching the drips - and that's with all the archive material immediately below, on the top floor!
Even so, do you remember the old Reference Library with a heroic staircase rising about 25 feet, without lifts or escalators? That was a smashing building, but it got in the way of Sir Herbert's road plans, so it had to go.
Peter
I remember the Central Library very well. Every Saturday afternoon.
Anyone who knows me well will confirm that I'm always looking for an opportunity to say, "The squall's clearing", or "Prepare to go about" or "Bring her round two points Mr. Bush if you please." "The squall's clearing," I learnt these and some other nautical terms forty years ago on a wet Saturday afternoon in Birmingham's Central Library.Saturdays where always the day to look foward to, even wet ones.
The Central Library had a lot of things going for it. It was dry, you didn't have to be over 16 to get in, it didn't cost anything and you might find something of interest. Christopher D, my constant companion and I would ritually start by going to Needleless Alley off Corporation Street to look at a penny black stamp.
Sometimes we would pop in to New Street railway station to look at the trains.
We would then normally make our way to the Art Gallery and Museum. But this Saturday afternoon for some reason we didn"t. Just across the road from the Art Gallery through the gloom, was the dim outline of the Central Library. It had an imposing entrance and an even more imposing staircase, which lead to the reference library.
We entered the ground floor which housed the main public library.
As you would expect the Central Library contained more books than anyone our age, we were 9, ever invisaged exhisted.
There were aisles of books, racks of books, rows of books, piles of books, walls of books, stacks of books to be sorted and placed back on their shelves.There were books of every dimension. Some so big it took both of us to manhandle one of them to a table. Books with pictures , books without.
Green books with brown leather spines, black books with bold gold titling. The choice was bewildering.
We were only allowed two books each and that would have to last us a fortnight.
For the past month our interest had been with the sea and ships. Any sea, any ship.
Like two young midshipmen we painstakingly worked our way along the shelves looking for anything that smelt of the sea. The covers of the books didn't give much away, the books were bound in plain colours, bottle green, black, dark blue.
I came across "A ship of the line." I'd never heard of C. S. Forrester. Authors at this early stage were unimportant, this was plainly a book about ships. I found a chair on the corner of a large table that was empty, took of my damp raincoat, eased my foot out of my leaky right shoe and started to read.
What little noise and movement there was faded away, soon there was a deck gently moving under my feet. I watched a victualing boat like a water beetle make its way back towards a grey smudge that was Plymouth. The tide was now on the full and the wind was backing to the Nor'east.
The weather had eased for the first time in three days and here and there bright spring green patches of headland were visable. With a clanking that came from the dipping bows a dripping anchor was retrieved. Slowly the Hotspur, sails unfurling eased her way to sea.On the stern of the Hotspur stood a young naval captain, dressed in a heavy navy blue coat edged with gold eppulettes. His breeches were white and behind his back, his hands firmly clasped his hat. He looked from his position in the stern to the sailors in the yard arms, talking occasionally to his coxswain he brought the 64 gunner underway.
I had just met Horatio Hornblower
ladywood
