Rosalie Huzzard’s reading journey

Rosalie is not a native Sheffielder, moving to the city in 2003 to be near her family. She is therefore not part of the original Reading Sheffield group, but it’s great to welcome her as a guest contributor. She was interviewed by Alice Collins on 7 March 2019. Alice wrote up the notes with Rosalie’s agreement. There is no audio record.

I was born in Redruth, Cornwall on 7 August 1926. My father was a Methodist Minister who had an extensive collection of books. I was an early reader and I could read before I went to school aged five. I don’t remember who taught me to read but reading and education were encouraged in our family. I always had a bedtime story from my parents, tucked up in bed. My brother and I weren’t read to together. He was younger than me and had bronchial asthma. He had to rest a lot and wasn’t such a big reader as me anyway.

Rosalie around 1932, when she was 5 or 6 years old

Stories I remember were Beatrix Potter books: Jemima Puddle-duck; Jeremy Fisher; Peter Rabbit; Mrs Tiggy-Winkle; Flopsy Mopsy and Cotton Tail, The Little Red Hen. Our equivalent of modern day picture books. They were illustrated with animal characters and very popular. Anthropomorphic, I suppose.

When I was seven or eight, I borrowed books from my father’s bookshelves. I read classics like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Dombey and Son. I can’t say I always finished these books but I remember enjoying what I read. I realise now the social and racial injustices described in those books completely passed me by. I may have been attracted to the children/family names in the titles. It’s only by going back and re-reading these books have I realised what they were really about. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is set just before the outbreak of the American Civil War. It’s horrifying to think what the slaves went through. Re-reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin prompted me to use GoogIe to find out more about the conditions of the slaves. I don’t think I understood Dombey and Son. Re-reading that, I have got more out of it and realise it’s not a children’s book.

Uncle Tom and Little Eva (illustration by Hammat Billings for Uncle Tom’s Cabin)

However, trying to read these long classics didn’t put me off reading. I felt then I should have read more. I wanted to read Anna Karenina at that time but didn’t get round to it. I currently belong to the RNIB [Royal National Institute for the Blind] talking books service. Up until recently I went to a sight-impaired women’s reading group but my sight has deteriorated so now I listen to books on a Daisy Player. I’m still a bit daunted by Anna Karenina today.

As a child, I read at night, under the bed covers, with a torch. I was allowed to read in bed then at lights out I was expected to put my book away and go to sleep. Often I was enjoying my book too much to obey.

Later, I remember joining the public library. I enjoyed Georgette Heyer stories – Georgian and historical romances. There was lots of competition for my time then – school, reading school books. I remember reading and learning poetry by heart. It felt a bore at the time but now I’m glad I did as I can still remember some lines. I remember Cargoes by John Masefield.

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

In 1936, when I was ten, my father got his first car. He didn’t have any lessons – just had a few tootles up and down the road – then we set off for a camping holiday to the West Country. I read some of my first paperbacks on that holiday. They probably included popular crime stories – I liked Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy Sayers.

When I was 13 I was evacuated to Redditch. I was living in Felixstowe with my parents at the start of the war, then Dunkirk happened. Fears of invasion prompted my parents to send myself and my brother to safer places. My brother had problems with his foot, so he went to a minor public school. I went, with a friend, to Redditch.

We continued our education there at a boys’ grammar school. They had to give up a classroom for us girls. We had half a day in the classroom; the other half of the day we were supposed to read school books. But I have memories of reading just what we wanted, sitting up in the trees in the sun. These were library books from the local library. I can remember liking PG Wodehouse around that time. There was a library in the local WH Smith shop as well.

I left school and matriculated at 15. I went to the Ipswich College of Art for two years. I loved art and wanted to be a dress designer. This was during the war years and many college lecturers had been called up. There were not many opportunities for dress designers in those times. I don’t remember reading; I was too busy doing other things.

I moved to Liverpool in 1945 and to London in 1946 to pursue my career in dress design. This was a long period of training to become a pattern cutter. I worked at C & A Modes in Islington and lived at YWCA in Highgate. Firms would take on designers for each new collection. I did design work for fashion houses, including Susan Small, and learnt drape cutting and tailoring there.

In 1952 I married Ron Huzzard. I’d met Ron at a London rambling club. He was an ardent trade unionist and member of the Labour Party, which he encouraged me to join. We had two children together. I left work when the children were born and went back when the younger was six years old. I joined the Society of Friends in the mid 1960s. I later became active in Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and campaigns for social justice and peace.

During this period I wasn’t reading much – I was too busy with work and looking after my family. My work life was changing – fashion became boring with the advent of the mini skirt. I felt there was little scope for design work so I changed tack and went to work as a political organiser for the Labour Party in Orpington. Typically, I worked 60 hours a week, as a campaign agent. I worked in the Greater London Council and the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), in Ken Livingstone’s office. It was an exciting time: socialism in practice.

I remember being in book groups in London, We read contemporary novels and some classics. I enjoyed Middlemarch.

Rosamond Vincy and Tertius Lydgate from George Eliot’s Middlemarch (Jensen Society, 1910)

I moved to Sheffield in 2003. My daughter lives here, my son in Sweden. I have two grand-daughters and the whole family keep in touch via Gran Facebook.

I’ve often had a feeling I’ve missed out on the classics. I’m trying to remedy that now by catching up on talking books on my Daisy wheel – I can get the whole book on one CD. I always have a book on the go – it’s how I spend my time these days. I’ve read Dickens and Austen and get a lot out of reading them now I’m older.

Looking back, my parents always encouraged me to read, which I’m pleased about. But I’ve always been a ‘doer’ in life, so sometimes I didn’t have time to read as much as I’d have liked to.

As told to Alice Collins by Rosalie Huzzard

Complaining about Firth Park Library (Part 2)

The old Firth Park Library building today

On Wednesday 3 September 1930, the Sheffield Telegraph printed a complaint about the new branch library at Firth Park. Signed by someone using the pseudonym ‘Liber’ (the Latin word for ‘book), the letter expressed dissatisfaction with the library’s books of literary criticism and also with its ‘third-rate thrillers’. ‘Surely,’ concluded Liber, ‘our Libraries Committee can do better than this’. (Here is the full letter.)

Presumably smarting under this attack, Alderman Alfred Barton, who chaired the Libraries Committee, replied the very next day. His letter in the Telegraph read:

FIRTH PARK LIBRARY BOOKS

Sir, —It is a new experience for the Sheffield Public Libraries to be criticised on the score of the quality of their book stocks, as they pride themselves on the catholicity of their selection. Liber, who criticises from an extremely narrow angle and an inadequate knowledge of the Firth Park stock, is apparently unaware of the problems to be faced in stocking a branch library.

The Firth Park Library contains 14,000 books for adults. There are actually 8,000 borrowers using this library. The book stock must cover the whole field of knowledge; it must also be selected to meet very heavy demands in certain popular lines of reading. The number of books in each subject is obviously conditioned by the number of people who will read them; further, regard must also be paid the stock carried in adjacent branches and the Central Library. The number of people who require what may be called specialised books at a branch library is very limited; a branch stock clearly must be of an introductory type. It would be uneconomic to stock heavy ranges of little-used books at a branch, where they would be largely ‘dead.’ The reader of wide range is catered for at the Central, and a system is now being whereby a reader who finds a branch stock insufficient for his needs can draw on the whole library service through his own branch. Perhaps Liber and others who have gone beyond branch library type books will make their wants known to the staff, who will gladly obtain any book not on stock at Firth Park from some other library. In fact, through any of our library units the service will obtain any book in print for any reader.

As regards Liber’s specific complaints, here are the answers. He complains:

There is no single recent book on the history of English drama

No complete set of Ibsen, and no works by Granville Barker.

There are only two books on the general history of the novel.

No works by George Moore.

Only two books go beyond the Victorian age in poetry.

My replies are:-

Brawley’s Short history of the English drama (1921) is in the library. The only other general work on this subject, by Nicoll, is in other libraries, and can be obtained on request.

A complete Ibsen does not circulate too well, even in the Central. It would be dead wood at a branch. There are fifteen plays by Ibsen in Firth Park. Barker is not stocked at any branch, merely because the demand does not justify it.

In addition to Phelps and Saintsbury, there are Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, Drew’s Modern Novel, and Williams’s Some Great English Novels.

George Moore does not circulate if placed in branch libraries; further, few of his works are in print at reasonable prices.

Will Liber recommend through the Librarian any books on modern poetry which he knows to be good? The field is very limited, as he probably knows.

May I conclude by pointing out to Liber that a branch library cannot attempt to cater for specialised reading, such as he suggests should be provided for periods of the drama. Liber is one of many who would have his own subject heavily represented, without regard to the balance of demand in other classes. The librarian who has the unenviable job of selecting books on every subject to meet the diverse demands of 8,000 readers must undertake the task with wide views and sympathies, and it is not unreasonable to ask cultured readers to try to view the problem from a similar angle.

Will Liber help us to build up this library’s stock by using the machinery of book proposal? His assistance will be welcomed.—Yours, etc.,

A. Barton, Chairman, Libraries and Museums Committee

Alderman Barton would not have written the response himself. Without detailed knowledge of library stock, including specialised works, he would have referred the matter to the combative City Librarian, Joseph Lamb. I have read enough library records now to be sure that Lamb either drafted the reply himself or approved it and added some final touches. He was never backwards in coming forwards.

Liber, who criticises from an extremely narrow angle and an inadequate knowledge of the Firth Park stock, is apparently unaware of the problems to be faced in stocking a branch library.

A complete Ibsen … would be dead wood at a branch.

Lamb would have taken badly the criticism of the new library, the first to be opened under his leadership and to include his theories about design and operation.

A librarian who has looked at the correspondence says that Liber’s complaint is common enough, and that the lines of the response, if blunt, are absolutely right. (She also admires the neat closure, inviting Liber to suggest some new books.) A branch library would necessarily have had a smaller and more popular stock than a central library. That Firth Park had as many as 15 of Ibsen’s plays is surprising. No branch library could not – cannot – afford to carry books which few people would borrow, and, as Barton says, books could be borrowed from other libraries in the city and across the country.

Alderman Barton’s response ignores one point made by Liber: those ‘third-rate thrillers’. Public libraries were at this time generally wary of spending ratepayers’ money on popular fiction. In a local BBC talk in 1927, the then chief librarian, Richard Gordon, had said that:

In general the libraries do not provide, as new, the ordinary novel. They do not have the money for the purpose, even supposing the ordinary novel was worth its price.

But Gordon had also acknowledged the ‘value to the people of the library’s service in providing recreational reading’. After he became chief librarian, Lamb decided to emphasise popular fiction in branches, in an experiment to increase borrowers. Firth Park had plentiful stocks of books by novelists like Edgar Wallace and Ethel M Dell, and publicised this. Lamb based his experiment on an analysis of borrowers, which concluded that, unless they were looking for something particular, people ‘read along mass lines’ and were drawn to ‘attractive’ books. When Liber complained, in September 1930, it was presumably too early to know the outcome of the experiment and so the point went unaddressed. But in time, Lamb reported ‘impressive’ results, with issues increasing by 300,000 over the year and borrowers by almost 12,000 across the city. (The story of Lamb’s experiment is here.)

Whatever Liber thought, Firth Park was already proving very popular. On the same day Barton’s letter appeared in the Telegraph, there was an article in the Sheffield Independent, perhaps planted by Lamb who was a canny publicist:

LITERARY FIRTH PARK. READS MORE THAN ANY OTHER PART OF CITY.

More books were issued from the new public library at Firth Park during last month than there were from the Central Lending Library in Sheffield; and the issues from the Central Library are amongst the highest in the country.

The Firth Park Library was opened only at the end of July. During August no fewer than 38,820 books were issued, whereas the issues from the Central Lending Library were 38,545.

The speed and firmness of Barton’s response, and the Independent article, may also have been intended to head off political criticism. There were local elections in November 1930 and the opposition had concerns about the ruling Labour Party’s spending, including on libraries:

…the speaker said “We have a mania for ‘super things’. Everything must be a show place for people to come to see. … we might have had a Central Library for somewhere round about £70,000, but instead of this we arc going to pay £90,000 for it. This is simply because we have not invited architects all over the country to plan it for us, but are going to pay the City Architect [a] £1,000 honorarium for one plan.” (Sheffield Telegraph, on an election meeting on 19 September 1930)

Liber never seems to have written to the papers again, at least using that pseudonym.

Complaining about Firth Park Library (Part 1)

A library cannot contain every book upon every subject…

‘What do you mean, you don’t have …?’ Library staff often hear grumbling like this, and presumably always have. Here is a complaint, printed in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph on Wednesday 3 September 1930, about the books available, or rather not available, in Firth Park Library, on the north side of the city.

Sir, —The Libraries Committee may justifiably take a pride in the new Firth Park Library, so far as furnishings and equipment go. In that respect it is excellently fitted up, and is probably one of the best for a great distance round. But reading desks and card indexes, do not make a library, and one cannot but feel that the Committee did not take as good advice in the choice of the books as in the matter of equipment. One realises, of course, that there are limitations, and that a library cannot contain every book upon every subject, but surely, however small the number of books, they should be widely representative and as up to date as possible.

A few days ago I visited the Firth Park branch in search of information on English literature. To my surprise I found that there was not a single recent book on the history of English drama. The modern period was represented by two books, and the Elizabethan by two; on other periods of drama there was nothing whatever. The selection of modern plays, one must admit, is on the whole good, though there is no complete set of Ibsen, and not a single work of so important a dramatist as Granville Barker.

The state of literature on the novel is about as bad as that on drama. There are two books only on the general history of the novel, and neither can be called modern. Several good books have been written on the subject of late years, yet we are denied the privilege of consulting them in an up-to-date library. One book only deals with the present-day novel, and there is one on the theory and technique of novel writing, and as for the novels themselves, surely there is something wrong with a library system which admits shelves full of third-rate thrillers, and yet excludes the best works of George Moore.

But perhaps the most startling deficiency of all is in the literature upon poetry. Of the eight books on the subject only two go beyond the Victorian age. Modern day poetry, apparently, is not worth reading about. On subjects other than literature I am not qualified to speak, but I should not be at all surprised to learn that they are catered for as efficiently. Surely our Libraries Committee can do better than this. It is a queer mentality which prefers up-to-rate [sic] equipment and furniture to up-to-date information.— Yours, etc., LIBER

The old Firth Park Library building today

Firth Park Library was, as the writer says, new. It had opened six weeks earlier, on Thursday 24 July, with a stock of 15,000 books. It was the first new library in the city for 24 years and the first-ever in the area. It was purpose-built, incorporating the latest ideas about design, operation and service. There were separate junior and adult libraries, which was then an innovation. Firth Park was an important step in the plan to reform and develop the city’s public library service. The Sheffield Telegraph was unequivocal:

There is no institution which has such a marked influence on the culture of the general community as the public library, and it is a healthy sign when a Corporation finds itself obliged to build more. Sheffield is in that happy position… (Friday 25 July, 1930)

Liber’s complaint about the availability of books must therefore have been disappointing for the Council and the library staff, particularly since the writer chose the local press as medium, rather than a quiet word over the counter. It’s impossible to say at this distance if Liber was a serial complainer, well-known to the librarians. Nor can we be sure of the writer’s gender or profession.

What is clear, even after 90 years, is Liber’s determination to establish impressive intellectual credentials. There’s also a more than a suggestion of pomposity. The choice of pseudonym – Liber, meaning ‘book’ in Latin – is a hint, and the style of the letter is, well, superior:

To my surprise I found…

…yet we are denied the privilege…

But perhaps the most startling deficiency of all…

It is a queer mentality which prefers up-to-rate [sic] equipment and furniture to up-to-date information.

Liber condemns the ‘third-rate thrillers’ to be found on the library shelves, and demands the controversial and avant-garde: Ibsen (1828-1906), Granville Barker (1877-1946), George Moore (1852-1933) and ‘modern poetry’. The poetry probably meant the work of W H Auden, Stephen Spender, T S Eliot, Samuel Beckett and others. Ibsen, Granville Barker and Moore were hardly the latest thing (Ibsen was long dead, and the other two were elderly), but their work had often challenged the status quo. None of these writers could have been described as popular in the Sheffield of the 1930s.

Leaving aside literary considerations, there may just have been something political behind the letter. Local elections were due in November 1930, with the opposition keen to unseat the ruling Labour Party and accusing it of wasting money, including on libraries. But Liber doesn’t mention money, and likes the library’s appearance. His or her concern seems solely to be about the apparently inadequate selection of books.

The Council’s response was swift and decided. You can read it in Part 2 of this post, to be published shortly.

We’ll also be looking soon at the controversy surrounding the ‘socialist clique’ invited to the opening ceremony for Firth Park.