Memories Of Kensal Rise, And The Library

A Memory of Kensal Rise.

I was born in harlesden , and lived at various addresses in the borough, in 1963 my family and i moved to 19 bathurst gardens,we had a ground floor council flat,two years later i was 15 and left school looking for a job,it was a good time for employment,loads of jobs around,i went to the labour exchange and found out that kensal rise library, at the end of my turning, needed assistants! So i applied for the job, i loved to read anyway,there was a rather severe librarian there called miss sparrow,for the first 2 weeks all i did was shelve books,she used to come behind me to check i was putting them in the right place! i loved working there,i went home to lunch, and it literally took me 2 minutes to get to work! I got great training there, customer care,learnt all about books too, i never read so much! I was always encouraged to borrow any books i liked, 2 years later my father's factory, celotex closed and he found work in hackney so we had to move,i was very sad,but the journey from hackney would have taken me too long,the staff there gave me a lovely book on costume ( i was interested in it at the time) they all signed their names in it, i still have the book! I was so sad and angry when i heard brent was closing the library,maybe there will be a small library there and flats upstairs,but it will not be the same,there was a plaque inside the library lobby saying how mark twain opened the reading room there in 1900, i wonder where that plaque is now? sometimes the librarian asked me to polish it!