The world was mine for the reading, A 5 minute freewrite
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I was born over a second-hand bookshop, which was managed by my parents and included accommodation in the flat overhead. I remember my father telling me that within the covers of the books lay all the knowledge of the world, and since I had so many questions, I was eager to read them all.
My father would buy books from houses all over the city, and my job was to shelve them as Mills and Boon, Romantic fiction, War, Westerns, Science fiction, Thrillers, Horror, Children’s and Detectives. Opening each box was like entering a wonderland where I never knew what treasures I would find.
Unfortunately, this love affair came to an abrupt halt when the traffic flow on the road outside was reversed, and the bus stop moved to the opposite side of the street eliminating the passing trade and closing us down. When we moved house, however, I soon discovered the joys of the public library and spent many happy hours sitting on the footstool between the shelves devouring as much as I could in case it was taken away.
It was the day I joined the library that I first realised that women were somehow inferior to men. But that's another story.
When we moved to yet another part of the city there was no public library, however, I was a frequent visitor to the school library, which, though closed to students without a teacher's written permission, was the place to which the principal summoned errant pupils to receive corporal punishment for their transgressions.
Posted in response to @mariannewest's 5-minute freewrite
The prompt is Library and the image is my own
Wonderful to have access to so many books and to be encouraged to read. Anything outside of school books weren’t allowed o be read by me in my childhood home. I guess my mother was afraid I would get ideas. 😂
Perhaps my parents were afraid I wouldn't! My father used to tell us we could do as we pleased as long as we didn't get caught;)
In our tiny grade school, the library was one wall of bookshelves in the cafeteria. I looked forward to the regular arrival of the bookmobile!
I bet you did!
Thanks for reading.
Upvoting your comment so you get something. I share this love of books and my favorite app is the one where I can download and borrow free books including audio books on my phone or electronic device. I have issues reading small print, so I can easily adjust electronically 😁
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You're such a little sweetie;)
I imagine electronic books are perfect if you have problems with small print but I enjoy browsing in secondhand bookshops so much I can't bear to progress to the electronic versions.
I wish I grew up like you with books galore right underneath of you. I am sure that would have given me a love for reading. And I love what your father told you about books. If only my parents would have encouraged me like that.
I must say it was wonderful and I really felt the loss of it when we had to move out, but the love of books has never left me.
Howdy deirdyweirdy! ha! that library was the place of punishment back then! You probably got into trouble just so you could get sent there! I share your passion for books and the library was always my favorite place too, I was a real oddball. So nothing has changed!
This was an excellent freewrite except maybe you should have graced us with one of your gifted hands drawings. But then I guess we can't expect to be spoiled so badly every single time you post!
An oddball you may be, but you're my very favourite oddball.
Thanks for the visit sweetie.
lol! you are very welcome deirdyweirdy and thank you for the kind words. If you keep that up you might have a chance to make it onto my highly sought after, very exclusive Christmas Card list. lol.
You're already on mine sweetie;)
lol! God bless you deirdyweirdy!
Well, that took a sudden dark turn, didn't it?
I'd be curious to hear that someday :)
I was gonna include that fascinating tale but fortunately ran out of time.
Oooh to live above a bookshop sounds like a bit of heaven! Love what your father had to say about the knowledge of the world. When I was younger my mother used to let me check out books from the public library once a month (as long as I behaved anyway). Imagine how different we'd be without access to so many books as children..
I read below about needing your father's signature as the head of house and though I was pretty sure that's where the 'inferior' part of your freewrite was headed, it's still saddening to read. 🤗
It was like a different world then. We even had a list of banned books which were not on display but sold surreptitiously from under the counter. Seeing what's happening on social media platforms recently though, it seems we've turned full circle to the 21st-century version of book banning.
Uggh. Book (and content) banning. 🤢 Inner and outer me cheers that the banned titles were sold anyways. 😀
My father wasn't a great believer in rules, other than the ones he made himself!
Still trying to figure out the school library part... suddenly I feel much better about my childhood spent under a communist regime.... I have such fond memories about the school library, as well as the public ones.
Even corporal punishment was nicer and distributed on the spot, no fuss, no humiliation...
If we were reported to the head we'd be summoned to the library for several lashes with a bamboo cane. When the loudspeaker at the front of the class crackled to life, we'd all stiffen, terrified our name would be called. I was reported almost daily for not having the correct uniform, a situation that even 100 blows could not rectify.
I've spent my entire school-life trying to avoid wearing the correct uniform, starting with the white ribbon you had to wear in your hair... but nobody got canned for that... a verbal reprimand was all... or maybe not being allowed inside the school for the day... but by then I was in high-school, I had other stuff to occupy my day with.
I saw the pic you posted of your school uniform and I thought it looked quite elegant compared to many.
We had a calf-length green and red tartan skirt, brown jumper, green and red striped tie, cream coloured shirt and green knee socks. Even I couldn't look good in that!
So many questions . You should write a book!
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When I have all the answers, then I'll write the book!
Fantastic story! Curious why you think women are inferior?
It was just a child's eye view. I would have been about 6 or 7 when the librarian told me I had to have my father and not my mother sign my application because the father was head of the house. This was a bit of a problem as my older brother had only perfected my mother's signature and not my father's;)
After this, I began to notice how many more rules there were attached to being a woman. At school the nuns were subservient to the priests, woman were obliged to cover their heads in church, and in the many pubs around which my mother dragged me, women were allowed only in the Snug, a small room with a separate entrance from the street with comfortable, upholstered seats and a hatch through which the drink was served and upon which one knocked to summon the barman.
This was the late 1960s and things were a bit different.
@deirdyweirdy Thank you for not using bidbots on this post and also using the #nobidbot tag!