Libraries are our friends. –Neil Gaiman I've touched on this subject before - but its dear to my heart and I worry we might lose such precious resources so I'm going to bat on about it again!! Its about 57 years since I joined my first library.. I was the youngest person to become a member of our local branch and I had to satisfy two major conditions.. the first, being fairly obvious was that I could read, and the second, was that I was big enough and strong enough to open the heavy wooden swing doors. The library itself was in a building at the end of our road and I used to think I was allowed to go on my own not realizing I was followed at a discreet distance on all my early visits. It was a lovely library set on two floors and. Completely paneled and furnished by the mouse man - Robert Thompson, beautiful heavy wooden furniture and panels with little mice carved in a odd intervals. At the tender age of 4 I was totally convinced that the mice ...