Dear Library, thanks for a lifetime of enjoyment with books

Books and libraries have been an important part of my life from when I was a toddler. Today, I am lucky enough to live within a very short walking distance of my local library.

The National Library is just down the road and with my library card, I can even go online and read glossy magazines to my heart’s content.

Borrowing my fortnightly fix of books was rather more of a challenge growing up in rural south west Scotland, which is why my mother and I were delighted when a mobile library started in our area.

She died very recently, peacefully in her bed, surrounded by books and some of my fondest memories of her are the times we spent together choosing books to read.

We shared many of the same taste in authors, though she was rather taken aback when, as a rebellious 14-year-old, I came home with a copy of Das Kapital by Karl Marx.

“I think you will find it heavy-going,” she predicted. She was right. I don’t remember getting past the first chapter. Catcher in the Rye was more my style.

Little did I dream when I was poring over Jean Plaidy’s historical novels or losing myself in F Scott Fitzgerald’s magical prose that one day I too would be an author. At the ripe old age of 60, I embarked on a new, (very) part-time career as a writer of non-fiction.

My first book, published at the peak of the pandemic, tells the story of Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries. My husband and I spent six months living there in 2019, interviewing scores of people from the then Vice-President to a traditional midwife.

The Spirit of Malawi was not a best seller and the book’s research cost me far, far more than the modest royalties I received, but it was the proudest day of my life when it was published.

And last year, I was privileged to co-edit The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht with my good friend, Lucy Hunter Blackburn.

Working on my kitchen table, we pulled together essays from more than 30 women telling the story of the five-year campaign to protect women’s rights.

To our huge surprise and delight, the book made the Sunday Times best seller list, and last month Lucy and I were pleased to be able to use proceeds from the book to support a charity working with women who are silenced elsewhere in the world.

The Dear Library exhibition features books recommended by the public, as well as by famous authors including Ian Rankin and Val McDermid.

Of course, I don’t expect to see one of my books on display, not even the bestseller, but I am still very excited at the prospect of seeing which books were chosen.

If I had to pick the one book that changed my life, it would be The Secret Seven, the first in Enid Blyton’s famous series about a group of kids who solve mysteries.

And the worst book I have ever read? Das Kapital, of course.