Mary Burgess - Local History Talk

On the 16th of October we held our AGM and October event at Cambridge Central Library hosted by Mary Burgess of the Cambridgeshire Collection. After refreshments and the necessary business, Mary took us down East Road in photographs and maps, showing how the area has changed dramatically in the last 60 years. As three generation of her family had studied at the former technical college, now Anglia Ruskin University, her illustrations were brough further to life with the anecdotes she had heard about the various pubs and shops which once filled the area.

The controversial demolition of much of the area known as the Kite, to develop the Grafton Centre in the 1980s alrered East Road Significantly, but more recently Anglia Ruskin has been behind major changes, with offices and ever increasing amounts of student accomodation replacing older buildings. All the audience, whether new to Cambridge or long standing residents, found the pictures of what used to be thre fascinating. There were far more small business, industries and pubs, in the area in the past, serving a greater permanent population. The resources of the Cambridgshire Collection, both photographic and print, especially old newspapers, are a fascinating source of interesting and amusing information about the places we take for granted and walk past today.

As well as the talk, based on her recently published book, we had a display of material relating to library history in Cambridge, including records of the Cambridge Library Group from the 1960s. It was interesting to see some familiar names in the attendance book, many of whom were known to people, some of whom are still members fifty years on. I hadn't realised the group had started that early. The pohotographs of the first branch of the public library, on East Road, caused considerable amusement, as it was basically a windowless shed, but served as a reading room from 1875 until closing in 1955.

Thank you to Sarah Preston for this write up.

John Corr: Reviewing books

On the 26th of September we kicked off our 2019-20 programme with John Corr talking about his experience of reviewing books, what got him into it and the people he has interviewed.

John was born in a small mining village in Durham and he had been encourgaed to read from a young age and therefore had become quite fluent before he even started school. He went to his village library, which was actually a church hall with trestle tables covered in books. It was here that he devoured everything that he could. After taking a job as a trainee sales projection engineer and not enjoying it, John decided to join the Merchant Navy.

It was when John was in the Army that he got involved in reviewing books, for a Soldier Magazine and most recently John has been reviewing books for military themed website, Army Rumour Service, which revels in the acronym ARRSE! John told us about some of the different books that he has had the pleasure to review, such as books on military history and politics. He was even asked to review Fifty Shades of Grey and turned it down because it was absolutely awful!

John has also been able to have to the chance to attend book festivals and interview some famous faces. He told us how he has interviewed Boris Johnson and Andy McNabb to name a few. He told us how he was inspired by something Andy said:

"No matter how poor your start in life, you can make something of yourself" - Andy McNabb

John went on to tell us how he reviews around 3 to 4 books a week and he doesn't watch TV as he spends a lot of his time reading books. He has two kindles and keeps one in the living room and one in the bedroom. He can always be found reading a book. 

We were absolutely delighted and extremely interested to have John speak to the Cambridge Library Group and we do hope he will be happy to come back and speak for us again.