Keith Parker

My Mobile Mentor

Mine came on wheels, a big block of green
towed here each Tuesday parked next to
the `Club` the biggest book collection `High Pit`
had ever seen. Better than the `Grammar `library,
this place had novels, with sexy extracts, as well as
`The History of the Mongols`, the first massive
history book I ever reserved and then read, the
starting point of my career as a historian.

If you mixed up the novels, full of juicy bits,
with your non fiction, and made sure the titles
weren`t too obvious, then your mum
would never notice as you squirreled them
into your bedroom. Then you could meet
exotic women, in love with spies and cowboys.
Travel to the future to meet exotic women, in love with
`Galactic Space Lords`, or tremble amongst ghouls
and ghosts, who seemed as in love as I was
with yet more exotic women. Or travel into the past, ride
with those Mongols, who didn`t seem to love anyone.
I became an expert at the age of twelve on
the tactics of the world`s finest light cavalry,
fascinated by battles, war and the hand of fate.
I wallowed in volumes on art, photography, and science,
and thought thoughts revolutionary for a miners kid.

I own my own books now but I still visit my
local branch, pay homage, one teacher bowing to
another, grateful it set me off down a rich road of awareness.
The local school has no library, replaced by computers.
With things as planned some may never meet the
knowledgeable friend, that gave me a steer, opened up
unimagined possibilities, and not just with exotic women,
on those wet Tuesday nights at the old pit yard.

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