The Little Wartime Library

by Kate Thompson

Genres: World War II; Sagas; War & Military

Synopsis

London, 1944.

Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above.

Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women's determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive.

Based on true events, The Little Wartime Library is an inspiring and heart-wrenching story of life on the homefront, and of the strength of courage required to fight for what you believe in.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 448

Sample

“Is crying allowed in the library?”

“Heavens above! Where did you spring from?” Clara blinked back her tears. “I thought I’d locked the door!”

It wasn’t exactly seemly for a librarian to be seen blubbing, red-eyed and snotty over her returns trolley.

Clara peered over the counter. A small face peeked back behind a long fringe.

“Sorry, sweetheart, shall we start again? I’m Clara Button, I’m the branch librarian.”

“’Lo. I’m Marie.” The girl blew upwards and her fringe parted to reveal curious brown eyes.

“Want a boiled sweet, Marie?”

“Are sweets allowed?”

“I have a secret stash of sherbet lemons.” She winked. “For emergencies.”

The eyes widened.

“I knew it, your favourite.”

Marie’s hand shot out to take the sweet and crammed it in her mouth.

“How do you know?”

“I know everyone’s favourite.”

“Bet you don’t know my favourite book.”

“Bet I do! Now let me see. How old are you?”

She pressed eight fingers close to Clara’s face.

“Eight, what a grand age to be!”

Clara walked to the children’s section of the library and scuttled her fingers along the shelves like a spider. The girl grinned, amused by the game.

Her finger stopped at Black Beauty—too sad—then travelled on to Cinderella—too pink—before slowly coming to rest on The Wind in the Willows.

“Am I right?”

She nodded. “I love the toad best.” Marie’s eyes ran greedily over Clara’s carefully stocked library.

“It’s like Aladdin’s cave in here.”

Clara felt a thunderclap of pride. It had taken her nearly three years to get her library as well stocked as this after the bombing.

“Can I borrow it? I had to leave my copy behind.”

“Are you an evacuee?”

Marie nodded. “We left my dad in Jersey.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Bet you miss him.”

She nodded and twisted her snot-encrusted sleeve over her fingers.

“My sister says I’m not to talk about it. Can I join then?”

“I’m sure we can get you enrolled,” Clara replied. “If you can get your mum to come and see me and fill in the form. I only need to see her bunk ticket.”

“She can’t come, my sister says to say she’s very busy with war work.”

“Oh, righto, well maybe your sister could spare five minutes.”

“So why was you crying?” Marie mumbled, moving the sherbet lemon to the other side of her mouth, her cheek bulging like a hamster’s.

“Because I was sad.”

“Why?”

“Because I miss someone special, well, three people actually.”

“Me too. I miss my dad… Can you keep a secret?” Her dew-bright eyes drew even wider. Perhaps it was the sweet that had softened her tongue, or the promise of The Wind in the Willows, but Clara felt this little girl desperately needed a confidante.

“Cross my heart,” she promised, licking her finger. “Librarians are excellent at keeping secrets.”

“My m—”

“Marie Rose Kolsky!” interrupted a sharp little voice from the door. “What do you think you’re doing in here!”

Clara instinctively sized up the girl in the doorway, taking in the pale, serious face.

“I’m so sorry, miss, my sister oughtn’t be in here bothering you. I told her to meet by our bunk.”

“I came to the bedtime story session,” Marie protested.

“Don’t be such a silly goose, Marie, they’re shut.”

“Oh no,” interrupted Clara, feeling the need to defend the little girl. “Your sister’s quite right. Every evening, we have a bedtime story session in the library at six p.m., only I’ve had to cancel it this evening on account of a function. But do come back tomorrow.”

“P’rhaps. Come on, Marie.”

She pulled her little sister’s arm and wrenched her in the direction of the door.

“N’en soûffl’ye un mot.” Clara didn’t speak French, but it was obvious Marie was getting a good ticking off.

“Do come back, I’ll save that book for you.”

But they were already gone, their footsteps echoing down the westbound platform.

Clara walked to the door and stared after them, intrigued, as they walked past the shelter theatre. Marie skipped as she was half-dragged, in odd socks and plimsolls. Her older sister was tight and buttoned-up. Not a bit like most of the young adolescent girls who slept nightly down Bethnal Green Tube shelter in a great rabble of noise. The Minksy Agombars and Pat Spicers of this world were all mouth and swank. She saw them every evening huddled round their metal bunks when she locked up the library to go home, plotting or piercing each other’s ears with their mothers’ sewing needles. Not this one. Still, she saw all sorts in her little underground library. The sisters disappeared from Clara’s sight into the acrid gloom of the Underground.

Up in the café in the booking hall above, Dot and Alice were frying up fish for the Jewish residents of the shelter in preparation for the Sabbath and the odour drifted down and curled through the carbolic. You could cut the smell down here in the tunnels.

With a heavy sigh, Clara realised she had even less time to repair her face and paint on a new one before the excruciating pantomime that lay ahead.

Her gaze fell heavily on the evening edition of the Daily Express that lay open on the library counter.

BLITZ CAUSES BOOK BOOM trumpeted the front-page headline over an awful photo of her captioned: Library lovely goes underground.

Library lovely?

The article hadn’t stopped there either.

Young childless widow Clara Button is doing her bit for the war effort, running Britain’s only Underground Shelter Library built over the westbound tracks of Bethnal Green Tube. When the Central Library in Bethnal Green was bombed in the first week of the Blitz, resulting in the tragic death of branch librarian Peter Hinton, Children’s Librarian Mrs. Button found herself propelled into the senior role. In the absence of male colleagues, she bravely stepped into the breach and arranged the transfer of 4,000 volumes underground, where she oversaw the construction of a temporary shelter library operating 78 feet below ground.

Our barbarous foes may be hell-bent on burning London to the ground, but beneath the city’s surface, Mrs. Button calmly carries on stamping books and ensuring everyone has a thumping good read to take their mind off the bombs.

It was the “childless widow” bit that had brought on her tears. It was true, right enough, but did anyone need to have their status so bluntly announced to the nation?

Clara thought again of Duncan and her grief sliced deep, a hot knife to the heart. That was all it took. The thought of his face on the doorstep as he left to fight, boots buffed to a high shine, excited as a kid at a summer fair. Questions curled through her mind like weeds.

What had he been thinking in the moments before his death? Should she have given up work at the library? How much longer would the lies persist?

“No!” she scolded herself, pushing her knuckles into her eyes. “We’re not doing this now. Not today of all days.” One good cry a day and never in the library. Those were her rules and she’d already broken one. Besides, who here in Bethnal Green wasn’t carrying an Atlas-load of grief. People needed to see a bright and jolly librarian, not this.

A rustle at the door tore Clara from the churn of her thoughts.

“Bleedin’ hell, it might be March, but it’s colder than a polar bear’s cock out there…”

An enormous tray of sandwiches and sausage rolls was thumped onto the counter.

“Ham off the bone, real butter… What a touch. Dot from the café did me a deal… I promised her double the tickets next week. Hang about, you ain’t even ready! The Picture Post photographer’s parking.” A slim hand shot out to snatch up the copy of the Daily Express Clara had just been reading.

“Triffic, ain’t it? Didn’t capture your best side though, did they? You look a right dog’s dinner in this picture,” she remarked with eviscerating honesty. “We better get you scrubbed up so you look better in the next ones.”

“Thanks, Rubes!” Clara laughed.

Ruby Munroe was her best friend and, latterly, library assistant. “Not qualified, unlike our Clara,” as she told anyone who enquired, and those that didn’t. “Thick as two short planks me.” Except she wasn’t. She possessed more guts and guile than most men Clara had ever met. Her best pal since primary school breezed through life, Formica-coated and with more chutzpah than the average Bethnal Greener. Nothing was impossible in Ruby’s world, no deal that couldn’t be fixed or negotiated.

It was true that Clara selected the books, oversaw the cataloguing and Browne Issue System, answered the more complex enquiries and did bibliographic searches. But it was Ruby who had the social intelligence to be able to connect with the vast spectrum of life they saw in the library.

“Oh, doll, you’ve been crying.” Ruby unknotted her towering headscarf and pulled a face. “Thinking about him?”

Clara nodded.

“Duncan or Peter?”

“Both really. Just this award, it’s got me thinking about how much they’d have loved this evening.”

Ruby shook her head. “This is your night, Clara Button. We’re going to have a quick tickler, and yes, I know it’s no smoking in the library, but you can make an exception for one night. Then, while you get changed into this”—she rummaged around in her string bag and pulled out something entirely unsuitable in fire-engine red—“I’m going to mix us a quick heart-starter.”

Clara felt acid churn in her stomach. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Nothing two aspirin and a gin won’t fix, Cla!” Ruby grinned as she lit a black Sobranie and poured a generous splash of clear liquid from a flask into two jam jars. “You’ve got half the East End Reading for Victory. All they want to do is say thanks.

“Bad times are good for books,” she went on, chucking back her drink in one gulp and shuddering. “Hell’s teeth, that’s got some poke in it. You’re an essential cog in the war machine, so enjoy your moment, girl.”

“But, Rubes, don’t you think this award, the timing of it, tonight of all nights, is a bit charry?”

“Course.” Ruby shrugged. “It’s called burying bad news. Accentuate the positives of the shelter to hide its past. Anyone can see through that.”

“But don’t you mind?” Clara persisted. “After everything you and your mum went through. To say nothing of half the people in this shelter. There’s not a person down here unaffected by that night.”

Ruby smiled tightly as she reapplied her red lipstick. “It happened. Who down this shelter ain’t lost someone? Now come on, slowpoke, get changed.”

“I thought I’d just wear this,” Clara replied, looking down at her usual rig-out of blouse tucked into slacks.

“You’re going to be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow, you ain’t looking like a spinster librarian.”

“I’m not far off it,” she laughed.

Ruby lifted one pencilled brow. “Behave. You’re only twenty-five.”

“Fair enough, but I draw the line at this!” Clara grimaced, pulling out the red dress.

“Let’s talk about it while I zip you up.” Ruby winked, clamping her Sobranie between her teeth.

Half an hour later, poured into the dress and a pair of Ruby’s vertiginous heels, Clara had never seen her little library so busy: officials from the Ministry of Information mingled with the press and regular library users. Due to the curved roof of the underground tunnel, the acoustics were such that the noise seemed to have reached a crescendo in her head. The shelter theatre next door was hosting a Russian opera singer that evening and as he warmed up for his evening performance, his rich voice rolled like a Tube train up the Central Line tunnel.

Mrs. Chumbley, the officious deputy shelter manager, was doing her best to hold back the sea of inquisitive shelter kids all clamouring to get into the library and filch one of the sausage rolls.

Clara caught sight of Maggie May and her best pal, Molly, along with Sparrow, Ronnie, Tubby and the rest of the Tube Rats as they called themselves, crawling in on their hands and knees.

Clara winked at them. She’d far rather be sitting cross-legged and shoeless on the floor reading aloud with the children, than trussed up in here like some sort of show pony. They were halfway through The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett, and a couple of chapters in, the antics of the Ruggles family were already proving irresistible.

“Out!” boomed Mrs. Chumbley, catching sight of the group and grabbing Sparrow by the scruff of the neck.

A gentle tap at her shoulder and Clara turned to see one of her regular library users, Mr. Pepper, an elderly gentleman, and his wife, who had been bombed out of their home two years ago and now lived down the Tube permanently.

“I shan’t take up your time, my dear,” he said. “It’s a bit noisy in here for my wife so we’re retiring to our bunks, but I just wanted to say jolly well done on this award. This library is the best thing to happen to this shelter.” He smiled, showing off a web of crinkles around his eyes.

“Thanks, Mr. Pepper. You’re one of my most prolific readers.” She glanced at his wife. “There’s not many who can say they’ve got through War and Peace in two weeks.”

“He’d read the print off our entire collection at home, until we were bombed out,” said his wife in such a little voice, Clara had to lean in closer to listen to the elderly lady. She smelt of Yardley’s Lavender and had the softest-looking skin.

“Losing his whole library was quite a blow, but finding your little wartime library has been a tonic, my dear.”

Mr. Pepper gazed adoringly at his wife.

“Alas, my eyesight prevents me reading what I used to in my youth, but I’ll admit, it’s been my luxury and my escape these past few years. I can’t tell you what you’ve done for me, Mrs. Button.”

“Come now, Mr. Pepper,” she teased, “you’ve known me three years now, please call me Clara.”

“He’s always been a stickler for formality, comes with being a headmaster all those years,” smiled Mrs. Pepper. “You shan’t get him to change now, my dear. Before we go, I must just tell you, I’ve a cousin in Pinner who’s giving away some books for the salvage drive, but we’ve persuaded her to give them to us instead, so we can donate them to your library.”

“Oh, how terrific!”

“She’s a devil of a reader, particularly loves her thrillers and mysteries. She’s built up quite the collection of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham. Would you like them?”

“Can a duck swim? Thrillers, along with historical romance, are our most borrowed books; they fly off the shelves.”

“You’d think people would have had enough of violence in the real world,” Mr. Pepper remarked.

“It’s the intrigue, the whodunnit suspense. It’s the perfect antidote to this war,” Clara mused.

“Downright queer!”

The figure of Mrs. Chumbley loomed over them. Even in heels, Clara had to strain her neck to look up at her. Poor Mrs. Chumbley. She’d never been married. She was only called Mrs. as a courtesy. Her face was always fixed in one permanent expression, disapproval.

“More of a Mills and Boon reader, are you?” Mr. Pepper smiled.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“What do you like to read then, Mrs. Chumbley?” Mrs. Pepper politely enquired.

“Read?” she scoffed. “And where would I find the time to read! Keeping this shelter running smoothly demands all my time. Tubby Amos, put that book down this instant!”

“I don’t mind them pi—” Clara began.

“I know what bunk you sleep in and I shall be talking to your mother! Where was I? Oh yes, I shall take up reading when we’ve blitzed Hitlerism out of the world.”

“Come now, Mrs. Chumbley, it’s not self-indulgent to read,” Mr. Pepper remarked. “Mrs. Button here could recommend something perfect for you. She seems to have something of a gift of matching people to their perfect book.”

Mrs. Chumbley softened as she stared at Mr. Pepper. The elderly gentleman was held in high esteem by the occupants of the underground shelter, and even Mrs. C wasn’t immune to his debonair charm.

“Perhaps,” she blustered. “But only if it were educational. I recently read a technical book, War Wounds and Fractures: The Definitive Guide. It was capital!”

“Sounds riveting,” said Ruby dryly, as she sidled up next to them, clutching the arms of not one but two men. “Watch out, Georgette Heyer.

“Now, Clara darlin’, sorry to interrupt, but there are some people here you must meet. This is Minister Rupert Montague, Director of Home Publicity at the Ministry of Information. He’s been trying to talk to you for the past half-hour.” She turned to the smaller of the men. In her heels, Clara found herself in the unfortunate position of standing two inches taller than him.

“And this is Mr. Pink-Smythe.”

“Pinkerton-Smythe,” he corrected, taking out a hand-kerchief and wiping his head with it, which had the unfortunate effect of sticking up the last few strands of hair he had left like an antenna.

“He’s the chair of the Library Committee. Which makes him our new boss,” said Ruby.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” said Clara. “I’m looking forward to working with you.” She turned to the man from the Ministry, wishing she hadn’t let Ruby talk her into this dress. “And welcome to our underground library, Minister.”

“So, you’re the librarian everyone’s talking about,” he beamed, shaking her hand enthusiastically. “This place is quite the find. Never thought I’d see the day where I came down the Tube to find books instead of trains. What are we, sixty, seventy feet underground?”

“Seventy-eight feet, the only place in Bethnal Green you can’t hear the bombs,” Clara replied proudly.

“And forgive my ignorance. What happened to the trains?”

“Bethnal Green was an unfinished stop on the Central Line, connecting Mile End with Liverpool Street Station,” she explained. “At the outbreak of war, construction was suspended. It was locked up and left to the rats, until the bombings began.”

“So how did it get opened up to this”—he spread his arms wide in wonder—“underground village? If that doesn’t sound too daft.”

“Not at all. All of us who live and work down here in this other London often think of ourselves as inhabitants of a secret village.” Clara’s eyes shone as she looked about. “We are all very proud of our subterranean community. Not many Tube stations can boast triple bunks for five thousand, a library, a theatre for shows, plays and dancing lessons—”

“With a grand piano, if you please,” interrupted Ruby.

“Quite. Not to mention a nursery, café, first-aid post with nurses’ and doctors’ quarters, all below ground,” Clara continued.

“Even got our own Tube hairdresser.” Ruby winked, plumping the back of her wavy updo.

“Can you hear the opera singer warming up next door? They’re putting on a performance this evening. Sadler’s Wells are bringing a ballet here next week.”

“Good grief. Culture, books and a built-in community. I may have to move here myself if this is what life underground has to offer.”

Clara felt herself relax. If there was one thing she loved to talk about, it was shelter life and its people. They were a community, albeit it a strange one, living along the Central Line but going nowhere. The way Clara saw it, she had a captive audience. Her little library lay firmly at the heart of this underground neighbourhood, the cultural equivalent of the village pump.

“Astonishing what lies beneath one’s feet, without one even really knowing,” the Minister mused. “How did it begin?”

“It was the people who got this place opened,” Clara enthused. “Everyone had their pride; the street shelters weren’t fit for a dog. It was little Phoebe’s dad who,” and here she inverted her fingers, “‘acquired’ the keys during the first week of the Blitz and in came the families, in the thousands, in search of safety.”

Ruby laughed. “Old Harry’s a terrible gambler, he’d bet on two flies crawling up a wall, but he weren’t prepared to take a chance on his family’s life.”

“I hardly think the Minister wants to hear about the lawlessness of the subversive elements of Bethnal Green,” said Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe quickly.

“On the contrary,” he replied. “I find it intriguing. I know in Whitehall there was a fear of deep-shelter mentality, that people would descend and never come back up again, but quite clearly that’s not the case here.”

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” scoffed Ruby. “In the day, people have jobs to go to. We’re working people, not moles!”

The Minister roared with laughter, clearly very taken with Ruby.

“Do you have sun-lamps,” he continued, “to counteract the lack of daylight?”

“No, sir,” Clara replied. “I suppose we’ve got used to working underground. We do suffer with catarrh, and the smells down the tunnels can be somewhat, how can I put this, earthy.”

“But the morning fumigation usually sorts that out,” Ruby added.

“And where are the latrines?” he enquired.

“Latrines!” Ruby screeched, and Clara braced.

“When we first came down, we had to do our business in a bucket. Now at least we got Elsan lavs. Must be moving up in the world, eh Cla!” she hooted. Ruby had a dirty great dollop of a laugh; she was famous for it in Bethnal Green.

“To begin with, we all slept here in the westbound tunnels,” said Clara. “But three months after the bombings began, the council officially leased the station from the London Passenger Transport Board.”

“Which is where I came in,” jumped in Mrs. Chumbley.

“We scrubbed the tunnels, whitewashed the walls and formed a shelter committee. If you want anything to happen, one needs a committee, don’t you think?”

“And you are?” he enquired.

“Mrs. Chumbley, deputy shelter manager under Mr. Miller. Besides us, there are twelve full-time wardens, plus the nursery, theatre, café and library staff.”

“But tell me, why do people sleep down here even now?”

“Housing,” Clara replied. “There’s a desperate shortage of habitable homes. Besides, people have got used to and like it down here. For some children, it’s the only safe home they’ve ever known.”

She hesitated. “That’s not to say we haven’t had our share of tragedies here. Did you hear—”

“Shall we press on?” Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe said, interrupting Clara.

“Good idea,” the Minister remarked, clearing his throat and calling for silence.

“And now, without further ado, I should like to award you, Mrs. Button, with your official Reading for Victory certification of excellence.”

Clara pushed down her anger. Why were they never allowed to discuss it? Why must their grief always be sacrificed in the name of morale?

Her mother-in-law’s face flashed unnervingly into her mind. The hasty funeral. The doctor’s words. Pull yourself together.

“Clara…” Ruby hissed, digging her elbow into her side. “You all right?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, breathing out slowly and touching her throat.

Her new boss, Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe, was staring at her curiously.

The Minister had hustled the photographer of the Picture Post to the library counter.

“Take a photograph of myself and Clara Button, branch librarian of Britain’s only Underground Tube Station library, would you, Bert? She’s the new poster girl for Reading for Victory.”

“Am I?” said Clara, blinking as the camera bulb flashed in her face.

“Absolutely. Everyone’s talking about this library. Word has reached Whitehall…” He lowered his voice. “Even Churchill knows about this little place. Quite the propaganda coup.”

“Thank you all for joining us underground today.” A silence finally fell over the library. Clara saw Mr. Pepper and his wife slip out of the door and wished she could join them.

“The enemy is trying to infect our minds with the dry rot of doubt and discontent, in the hope that our morale will crumble. We must continue to inform ourselves upon the issues that underlie the conflict and upon what is at stake. To this end, books are indispensable. Bethnal Green Underground Shelter Library is rendering service to the National Cause by providing the matter and the method of good reading.”

All eyes were on her and Clara wanted to fold herself away in a library book.

“When the library took a direct hit and its most senior member of staff was killed, there cannot have been many gals who would have the gumption to step into the breach.

“As book sales dip through paper rationing and with the scarcity of new books, the role of the publicly funded municipal library takes on great significance.”

More flash bulbs, reporters scribbled, and Clara prayed for the speech to be over. But the Minister was warming up for a Churchillian finish.

“Libraries are the engines of our education and our escape, never have they been more important in transforming our lives.

“Please accept this certificate with the grateful thanks of all at Whitehall.”

Clara took the framed certificate and knew she had to say something.

“We have been urged to fight for victory, to dig for victory and to save for victory. There can at least be no harm in suggesting that we read for victory,” she concluded, with a smile.

Applause burst throughout the library and Clara laughed as Ruby put her fingers between her lips and let rip an ear-shattering whistle that drowned out the opera singer next door. The Tube Rats whooped and stamped their feet from outside the door. Mrs. Chumbley charged through the crowd in their direction.

“Gracious,” said the Minister. “I thought libraries were supposed to be quiet spaces.”

“Not this one,” Ruby replied, pressing a glass into Clara’s hand. “It’s always like this. Especially when we have the children’s storytime in the evenings.”

“First class. Grab them when they’re young and you’ve a reader for life.”

Clara nodded eagerly. “Absolutely, but we don’t just cater for the young. We offer a weekly mobile library service to local factory girls every Friday afternoon. If they can’t come to you…”

“You take it to them,” he finished. “And this must be on the—”

“Bibliobus.”

Clara was rather proud of the old 1935 Morris 25 HP saloon donated by Kearley and Tonge cake and biscuit factory on Bethnal Green Road. “A Library to Your Door” service had proved tremendously popular, especially with the local factory girls, who loved their weekly romance fix.

“I think it’s marvellous and you are so in tune with Whitehall’s thinking. Librarians must be dynamic in their encouragement of Reading for Victory.”

The Minister was getting excited now as he warmed to his theme. “I’m going to put you forward to be interviewed for The Times. They’re investigating the work of public libraries in impoverished areas.”

“Oh, well. I don’t know,” Clara hesitated.

“Don’t be bashful, my dear,” said the Minister.

Clara’s feminine intuition sensed Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe radiating resentment next to her.

“Our aim, Minister, should be to raise the borough’s reading standards,” he chipped in with a thin smile.

“We have a moral duty, do we not, Mrs. Button, to educate? There is an awful lot of…” and here he cast an eye over Clara’s bookshelves, “… mental opiates available now. Fluff. Whimsy. Dreadful tedious romances. Books written by the half-educated for the uneducated.”

Clara felt a strain of red flush over her chest.

“With respect, sir, I disagree. Peter… my colleague, believed that pleasure in reading is the true function of books.”

She thought wistfully of the man who had nurtured her love of reading, encouraged her parents to allow her to sit the entrance exam for the Central Foundation Girls’ Grammar School in Spitalfields and encouraged her to study for the Diploma in Librarianship.

“Who are we to say what people ought or ought not to read?” she persisted.

“She has a fair point, does she not?” said the Minister, turning to Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe. “War has opened the public library door to many users who previously would only have used a tuppenny library, and we should hate to lose them.”

“Listen,” ordered Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe. “I admire your youthful energy, Mrs. Button, but let us remember that, as librarians, . . .