I am a huge fan of public libraries, from childhood up until today I have found them wonderful places of education, escape, peace and adventure. At secondary school I was a ‘librarian’, and for a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked at Whitechapel Library – once known as ‘The University of the East End’- a wonderful place full of history and atmosphere. As soon as it opened its doors in 1892 the library became a place of escape and learning for the local poor and the large Jewish population who had sought refuge from persecution in eastern Europe. It became a place of refuge and learning, and it was also a meeting place for political activists and revolutionaries. Famous library users have included the poet Isaac Rosenberg, artists Mark Gertler and David Bomberg, the playwrights Arnold Wesker and Bernard Kops, (his wonderful poem Whitechapel Library Aldgate East is below), and the scientist and historian Jacob Bronowski, who became internationally famous for his landmark television series The Ascent of Man. The library closed its doors for the final time in August 2005 and was replaced by the modern Idea Store half-a-mile away along Whitechapel Road. Today the old library forms part of the Whitechapel Gallery, and the old workroom where I and my colleagues processed new books and repaired the old ones is now the gallery’s restaurant.
Whitechapel Library after Closure, 2005 © Phil Maxwell
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East by Bernard Kops
How often I went in for warmth and a doze
The newspaper room whilst my world outside froze
And I took out my sardine sandwich feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And the tramps and the madman and the
chattering crone.
The smell of their farts could turn you to stone
But anywhere, anywhere was better than home.
The joy to escape from family and war.
But how can you have dreams?
you’ll end up on the floor.
Be like your brothers, what else is life for?
You’re lost and you’re drifting, settle down, get a job.
Meet a nice Jewish girl, work hard, earn a few bob.
Get married, have kids; a nice home on the never
and save up for the future and days of rough weather.
Come back down to earth, there is nothing more.
I listened and nodded, like I knew the score.
And early next morning I crept out the door.
Outside it was pouring
I was leaving forever.
I was finally, irrevocably done with this scene,
The trap of my world in Stepney Green.
With nowhere to go and nothing to dream
A loner in love with words, but so lost
and wandering the streets, not counting the cost.
I emerged out of childhood with nowhere to hide
when a door called my name
and pulled me inside.
And being so hungry I fell on the feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And my brain explodes when I suddenly find,
an orchard within for the heart and the mind.
The past was a mirage I’d left far behind
And I am a locust and I’m at a feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And Rosenberg also came to get out of the cold
To write poems of fire, but he never grew old.
And here I met Chekhov, Tolstoy, Meyerhold.
I read all their worlds, their dark visions of gold.
The reference library, where my thoughts were to rage.
I ate book after book, page after page.
I scoffed poetry for breakfast and novels for tea.
And plays for my supper. No more poverty.
Welcome young poet, in here you are free
to follow your star to where you should be.
That door of the library was the door into me
And Lorca and Shelley said “Come to the feast.”
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
Philip Green, Blogging & Writing. 