I finally have a cause.

I HATE PROTESTS. I hate protesting.

They want to close my library. Well, not my library specifically, but possibly yours or the library I might have looked in on in the future. The library I might have sheltered from the rain from. Spent 10 minutes in before catching a train. The library I might have found a gem of local history in. The library I might have stolen a cheeky kiss in. The library I might have owed a fortune in fines. To close libraries is to limit experience, to shut off opportunity and to leave people without books.

The Victorians gave us capitalism, they destroyed village communities they drove dirty railways and chimneys through every town and city. But they democratised learning. I think of Oadby Library. My Haunt. A small but cleverly thought out philantropic gift from the Victorian Ellis family. In the village where they lived they ensured the railway bypassed the village (sneaky) and built parks and gardens, swimming baths and a public library. They exploited, but it was an economy which gave access to individuals in my village to books. A fundamental improvement of Victorianism was this introduction of schooling, free education for all. In my mind, it is this which had more impact on the development of a middle class than any other. People could escape the social boundaries set in place by their class through learning, and this education came for free at libraries.

I was brighter than my classmates because I read. I may have read anyway, but the weekly visit with my parents to the library was vital, when I was young. Being able to walk to the library coloured every one of my teenage summers. Maxing out my library card was a dangerous and continuous trial and delight. Breaking my back carrying books on popular science, fantasy, psychology, history, graphic novels (dear God I remember the first manga) and fiction, is an activity I continue to pursue to this day.

It will not do to say that there is another library a few miles on. It is the poor who cannot afford the bus ticket, who haven't got the cars, who are unwilling to make the effort to go a little bit further just because their kid wants to read the latest charlie and lola. The middle classes will be outraged, of course. They will suffer less, they will miss it more, but they can afford to make the effort.

I will go to the library tomorrow. I will get my book. I'm not sure what it will be. But I'm sure just entering will give me the same feeling of excitement, of prospects. Enormous prospects, not just that I will find something fabulous, but that doing so will make me cleverer. I just hope I'm not too late, jumping on the bandwagon just before it passes.