A proper book

Took delivery of a book which BH thought she would like for Christmas; not a surprise but at least one knows that she really wants it.

A second hand first edition - not that I know whether it ever ran to a second edition. But I was pleased to find that it was a proper library book, complete with all the stamps and stickers. Even a ticket. Even a plastic protected dust jacket. Good that libraries have stopped ripping all this sort of stuff out when they sell books off; it used to be rather disfiguring.

So we now know that one section of the Kent library operation was called 'Villages', which presumably took the form of one or more truck mounted branch libraries. The sort of thing that figures occasionally in 'Midsomer Murders'. Perhaps in these days of slashing local government budgets rather than central government ones, the television series is as near as we are going to get to such a thing. Books of this sort apart.

It appears to have been bought shortly after the book was published in 1976 and had a fairly good run for about ten years after that. Now come to second life here in Epsom.

PS: I particularly liked the stamp from 'H Q VILLAGES SECTION RESERVE STOCK'. Very properly bureaucratic.