The Briish Library has featured quite heavily in the life of my family – my sister, a librarian worked there for many years, my daughter Helen is a member of the library and has done months of research there for her work and her books, and I have been on the receiving end of the Classic Crime series since its inception and have attended conferences and exhibitions there. It is a wonderful place through I freely admit I am not a huge fan of its design. No matter.
At the beginning of the year when I was setting off on my cruise I sent an email to the lovely peeps in the publishing department saying I would be away but please send books and I will see them on my return. They did. At the end of this email I said jokingly that if ever there was a chance of a tour of the stacks that would be fantastic. I did not expect one and totally forgot this remark.
And then on my return I received an email saying Yes it had all been arranged. I was absolutely thrilled to bits as you can imagine and even more pleased that my sister, Judith, could come along with me. So this week off we went. And oh it was WONDERFUL.
I have had a stressful week, photos vanishing into oblivion from my ipad, Apple unable to help, washing machine breaking down and in the process plunging half my electric circuits into Stygian gloom and then, to top it all, toothache which kept me awake at night. So I certainly needed some cheering up and the afternoon at the British Library certainly wiped all my stress away.
Now I want you to imagine our feelings when a large box was brought to a table and the lid opened, tissue paper removed and there in front of us was the Gutenberg bible. And I was allowed to gently touch it. Yes I was!
And then imagine how we felt when we were shown Shakespeare's First folio dated 1635.
And then let us carry on – sheet music of the Rule Brittania overture written by Wagner.
And then more – a letter from Mozart.
I freely admit by this stage that I had a tight chest, a lump in my throat and was very close to bursting into tears of joy.
And on a lighter note, a shelf load of Wisen on Cricket with pornographic magazines above…..I rather enjoyed this juxtaposition.
Judith and I spent nearly all our time going OMG! and WOW! and fantastic and really must have got very repetitive but can you blame us?
We repaired to the restaurant afterwards for a cup of tea and a custard tart. We needed it…..
A truly awe inspiring day.
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