The Library at North Shields 1975

It’s a carbuncle on the the beautiful Northumberland Square my mother used to say

With its squat nineteen seventies pressed patterned concrete facade 

A glass walled bunker challenging the eye to stand its ground and fight

Long slit windows on the second floor, turrets that could easily hide archers

ready to set loose their volleys on vandal hordes in league with the guild of scribes.

Here I would walk with my father past Christ Church and down Church Way

him with Douglas Reeman, Alexander Kent and I with Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov

a shopping bag full of our new and old friends, 

whose grand stories and adventures this week had been by torchlight read.

Father with his flat cap and Meerschaum pipe greeting every person on the way 

the cheerful good mornings, nice to see you, and you take care

verging on embarrassing to this socially awkward teen turned child

Our Saturday morning pilgrimage with mothers final instruction,

after sausages from the butcher, to pick her some nice books in a historical type of way.

Walking through the glass and aluminium doors we exchange our esteemed guests

their jackets always opened for a cursory check that their sentences had not expired 

granting us free access through a chromed gate to the inner sanctum within 

Like bloodhounds on a well loved scent each to their own shelves we went 

wary of interlopers within our own patch, for every dog need his own space

Thirty minutes to select new companions for the coming week

A harsh penance for the child who could have spent all day at such a task

Then off to Campbell’s the butchers on Saville Street 

for pork, mind not beef, sausages to buy.