The Small Boy and His Library Book
A story,that happens to be true.
Written and presented by Paul Howes.
Copyright upon this fine day 06/06/2021
Chapter 1 Relief for the child
It was always the case that his brother Ron,had laid out and had lit the evening coal fire that sent large volumes of dark grey smoke bellowing slowly up the chimney, but soon thereafter he had disappeared out the back door to meet up with his pals in the local playful street gang. They in total or even when in a few one or two ruled and defended the Wensum Park,and bomb sites along the entire Drayton Road,leading all the way past the Dolphin tow path leading to the spikes of the Mile Cross Bridge that crossed over both railway lines and the River Wensum at that point. They the local rough and tumble boys that once were,were a community set apart from any other before it or since. Even the older local Teddy Boys, known as Teds avoided contact with the Mile Cross Boys of 1955. They were all boys borne of the days dictated and shaped by the war. Their ages ran up from ten to sixteen ,it surely was a gritty time of their young life and they were well fit enough for it. Dear Ron, was born in the early winter of 1945 in that house and home.
Upon a rather cold,dark rainy winters afternoon in Norwich, soon after Dowson School had turned out its rushing herd of children that scattered like mice in all directions, he the boy followed some of them that entered into a most quiet place ever to settle deep within his ears upon the Bignold Road. It must be said mainly to escape the heavy rain that thundered rushing torrents down upon his head, coat and his shivering bare legs that caused quite a swamping of his grey woollen socks and laced up shoes. This certainly was a heavy something that he personally had never been beneath before. And dear me it was a spot that he cared little for, as he was far to tender young in aged years. His little thin coat being rather wet through, dripped tiny puddles upon the bare wooden floor, He most certainly didn't know what this strange place was but certainly cared enough to find out,the why of it all. However stranger still for him he found himself in a small queue, leading into a lobby that had that smell of fresh polished waxed floors. The two much older girls that he had followed where already past the main desk,and had soon skipped off from his view.And it was a short while later, there having placed his name in wonky letters upon paper that he was allowed to enter this brightly lit place of very strange walls, because there were none on view upon that awful dark daydreaming day. For each wall between high oblong windows that reached up near to the high ceiling above was clad in all sorts of upright books. The little wide eyed lad of about 6 years of age who had been taught how to spell only his name and address, looked up at all those book's above him, for they sure seemed to sail away up,up into oblivion, because to this little author to be, many had long since been forgotten by the masses that had put them there in the first place. For the most part those that had written afore his time of active heart beat of repetition, they most certainly didn't cast any long shadows upon the earth any longer. He calmly looked at his library card that the kind old lady at the desk had filled out for him. Unable to read he would later on in life's patterns of ongoing change, refer to it all as a wonderment of conflicting ignorance! The strangest thing was within his inner most deep feelings, at that odd time,because he sensed that the great cupboard with its rather dusty books sleeping highly above it on its wooden shelves,was indeed pulling him towards it. It was as if the wooden floor was moving too,and in doing so slid him back to that inquisitive eye balling place at the foot of that very high dark thing where a large bound book was slowly sliding out by some unseen force. He glanced back to the little old lady at her desk,and raising her head slightly she smiled in his direction just as the book reached out falling into his wide opened shaking terrified hands. What is happening to me? He thought at that precise juggling time.
The lady beckoned him to her without saying a word, and so with this rather large book now in tow in his arms he plonked it upon the desk and it was rubber stamped and after asking for his library card the kind smiling lady stamped that too. You can take it home now to read, she said in her soft toned highly educated voice which had quite a calming effect upon his ears. After slipping the heavy book into supportive place within his dark blue raincoat and pulling tight its belt beneath its weight he held it to his small chest and raced along toward the city streets that he had become used too during his first year and a bit at school. For sure each shaped and mortared into place brick of that lowly educated school stood in its learned old upright place of limited education for the masses upon Wheeler Road. Well for him anyway it was the foundation process of peg into place which proved it to be the universal case, as each day spent there he leaned upon his desk and elbow with dreamy grey face supported in his soft cupped hand, while using the pencil in the other and always thinking of the ringing brass bell that resounded did declare his play time, dinner time or in hurried excited fashion that his home time escape of 4pm had finally arrived.
Upon arriving home via the back door that was never locked in those far away trusting days, he hung his little wet blue coat with its loose dangling belt upon his favoured iron nail. The heavy book he laid upon the first stark looking wooden step of the stairs that were a wonderful flight of things that led up and most remarkably in his own way of reasoning, down too.
Upon reflection it seems that, that book was squeezed out from rank and file by somebody unseen pushing another book through from the other side of the bookcase. so no great mystery in that and most certainly no magic either to frighten little boys,even if they believe in the polished wood of moving floors,but i must add here that it did add to the chill of it all. As for that little six year old boy, that lugged that book home that was a good quarter of his size, upon that awful wet and cold winters day that had been put into its own time slot within that year of 1955,it the book would certainly raise issues later on during his long life.
Chapter 2
Another Boy Appears
The house built up tidy-like in 1939 with its official number of 67 pinned to its blue door, stood like many more in its planned for spot upon Shorncliffe Avenue amidst the dotted lines of pink flowering ornamental Hawthorn tree's , and in spite of the recent rain of German bombs all of them took the shock of it all well, and remained in their upright, rightful place of free existence! So much later within that numbered house was where the thick book of adventure had lain upon the bottom of those plain old bare wooden stairs.
Chapter 3
The Clock Face of Rome
Soon there were hot coals in the black cast iron fireplace fit enough to toast crusty brown to any slice of thick cut bread, or keep any king at peaceful ease while warming his woolly socks. Now with his gaze ever forwards the little boy studied the front and back cover of the library book, but although he traced out every letter shape with his finger he could not read its title. However the strange man walking along the sea shore dressed up in garments made of furs, and carrying two long guns did so stir up his curious natured imagination. So he hoped that his Mom, would enlighten him by reading some of the contents.
As the clock upon the cast iron mantle piece pleasantly chimed out the quarter past six, its delicate numbered roman face saw the little fellow below already with hard pressed blunt pencil drawing up his version of that strange man upon the beach. Which was altogether such a curious thing to view indeed, because of his highly concentrated tiny tongue tip being employed between his front teeth, and his keen as mustard quick glances at the complicated picture. Very soon his happy wax crayon was employed to complete the smudge. A funny faced masterpiece thought the little ticking clock, but with raised finger to my lips, Shoosh, Please do not tell? What the boy thought of it in his remembering, he could never recall. Or could he? Or even would he?
Chapter 4
Upon the Dark Aylsham Road
6.45 pm arrived on time and so did the crammed to full double decker bus, and to plant a number upon it to be precise it was the famous red 88 Bus, well at least in the young boys mind because it always brought his Mom home to him. In all weathers his ordeal was undertaken to help fetch his mother home from her workplace in the far away big city of Norwich. Well i must admit sure he understood it to be the case. As it turned out it was always a 20 minute bus ride to the old Children's Home, where she got off. Always he helped carry the brown paper bags full of free take away left over food from her workplace. Grace Liddy,bless her heart was a washer up in a cake come restaurant named MATHTIES that nestled in the Back of The Inns in Norwich, situated near the old Norman castle standing proud upon its grassy giant earthen mound. Hello Mom, Hello ???? they would always say when meeting again. And so it was that the two of them quick paced headed for home 5 minutes away. The weather having abated for a short brief while from chucking down entire rivers upon all those unlucky heads that had happened to be below it, had dried itself with a good strong wringing out! My O My, the boys coat certainly could testify to that, if only it could. After Tea that very same evening while the lazy wooden hump-backed radio drifted in and out of whistling musical song, his Mom read the title of the book, then opened it up. Upon the same cosy chair the little boy snuggled up close, as she began to read the story to him, he knew that although he was a home alone latch key kid with chapped legs he was loved. His tiny world being at that time was only Brother Ron,and Dear Mom.
The Year Of Printing Was 1889 ; American Version
The first book to read, like a battle flag waving upon the breeze was never forgotten.
Passages of Time
Many a year passed by and the boy now a man in rather odd army fatigues returned home from a tour of duty, it was 1973 and that month of July and year was one that saw him open up the secret place in the bedroom of his innocent youth. The small loose floor board was easily removed from its oblong spot under the bed and everything that had been kind of special to him back in the days i wrote of before, was there. The broken metal cap firing gun,the plastic Cowboy and Indian toy figures, the bag holding all those rather well played with glass marbles and of course there was that thick heavy book Robinson Crusoe, which had been the book taken out on loan. Dusting it off slightly with his hand he thought out aloud but quietly," Poor, poor Robinson ." Soon after he began to study the book in a new light as never before. Another 21 years would pass by before he would raise the issue of this borrowed book.
The very first issue for the boy popped up overnight soon after the last entry in the book was read, as he soundly slept in his comfy warm bed, the old Library burnt down with its ashes blown away upon such a stormy wind that drove its flame furnace like white hot. So way back in the day, the book was never returned which was a fright indeed for him, because in his gentle way of over reasoning it should have, and so it worried him greatly. After all in his young complex mind he had been wisely taught by his Mom, not to steal anything. And so it was he hid it in concealment in a very special secret place. His thought upon the worry of it all, was if none could see it there would be no blame!
Chapter 4
The 4th of July1994 arrived with heavy rain that poured fit enough for anyone to imagine a small sized fishing boat with strung out net being gradually filled out with bulging fish behind it, and all passing by their bedroom windows, for it rained for 10 days solid and then upon a Friday three days into that storm heaps of mail arrived and so did an elderly gentleman. A Norwich City Bailiff, and his call was about the long overdo library book. Yes time was once more set aside and into upright honest place to explain the actions of that little boy of long ago, who was born way before many of you even came into existence.
Well as to this story it sure did drag along in outstretched pace, all completely due to such a thing as higher authority, as all who amble about within it also waddle about like old ducks quacking out the gobbledygook of lower class words, of juggling lingo of state mystification. However the oddest thing was about to stand such rhetoric upon its head. It was the ability of two heads applying Reason. That is just as the City Bailiff explained it. The legality of the case being connected entirely to the age of a small boy,and therefore not that of a full grown man. Why the said book was never returned was due entirely to the blaze that consumed the old Victorian Library in 1955 that once stood upon Bignold Road in the City of Norwich. So it had been decided upon after such mutterings as already described ,that the said book in question had never been stolen by the boy. It did seem an odd affair of circumstance that a 66 year-old book taken out on loan by a child in 1955 did actually still exist in the year 1994. As the Bailiff stood in the small lobby at the bottom of the stairs he officially added and showed the paper work, that stated 39 years of overdo fines would not be served upon the former child or the man in question.
While the heavy sound of rain fell upon the garden and lobby step, he asked a question with a broad smile upon his face. Would you like to keep the book, but replace it by the cost of another by way of a small donation? Sure, i replied,why not. He laughed out aloud, well sir you don't have to. Because the insurance paid out long ago to the Norwich City Council Library had written off all the books on loan from the Library at that time. If only the young boy that i once was could have understood that, it would have saved him so much worry. However being good as my word i made a small donation to the Norwich City Library Fund in way of peace of mind.
The story was one of the strangest reports that the Bailiff had ever read, and now off the cuff had found
Paul Howes
To explain further, it had been the 6th of June 1994,and upon that hot blistering day it saw me enter the main Norwich City Library, with the book and a question. i went in and asked a young lady who was seated at her desk, if the Library would like this book returned ? i mentioned my story upon the matter, and after she asked me 'is this a wind up?' i answered no. Upon trying to think about and reason upon the matter, she decided that it was way above her pay grade. So her supervisor a rather middle aged plump lady arrived upon the scene, and after a while armed with certain facts flitted off in the direction of her office at the top of some winding stairs. Upon her return she explained it would be addressed at the next Norwich City Committee, Meeting. And with that said she sailed off back along a long line of black eyed worried student studying upon the free to use white plastic computers.
it very interesting as i retold him the whole truth upon the matter because only i ever knew how that little home alone boy felt, and none other. Yes i was that boy.
The rain was still bucketing down as the Bailiff, ran up the garden pathway and through the open gateway. He turned and smiled and after entry in his time saving machine standing upon its rubber heeled wheels he was soon gone. So for the very first time in over 39 years i legally owned that very large book. A book that i have reviewed many times over to finely see the eye of the freemasons work deeply written within it's pages.
Chapter 5
Book Protected
The book of poor Robinson that he narrates himself is of a black slaver, shipwrecked and marooned for over 28 years on an island somewhere within the mouth of the Amazon River. Daniel Defoe with feather quill penned it, and it was first published in 1719. My later copy of 1898 is worth a small fortune true, but the memory of that being my first look see and learn book of early reading, read daily by my Mom, in those early days of our post war poverty is the real warming value for me.
The 1st of August 1994 arrived hot in more ways than one, because the main Norwich City Library caught afire due to a gas leak which exploded when the electric lights were switched on. Coincidence or what? If the book had been returned it too would've added to the ashes for the whole site was destroyed.
So irony had once more been played out again which sure did save the book,
As i and that small 6 year old boy wave you bye
This story is dedicated to the Memory of my Dearest, Mother Grace Liddy Howes
and my older Brother Ronald Howes, both now sleeping safe in the memory of Jehovah God.
