Alan Bennett brings London Library to book

 
p16 p17 diary Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard. Alan Bennett. Picture by GLENN COPUS
GLENN COPUS, Getty
3 January 2013

Alan Bennett enjoys an unusual relationship with Britain’s librarians — he is one of a small minority for whom the “no talking” rule seems to go straight out of the window.

This has been very helpful when it comes to the campaign to save local libraries, but will the London Library thank him for his latest comments.

Writing a diary for the new issue of the London Review of Books, the History Boys playwright notes that he’s feeling rather out of pocket because of the fees at the private library on St James’s Square. “The basic London Library fee is now £445,” writes Bennett. “My borrowings are so few this works out at £20 per book — and that is an underestimate. I suppose I have to think of it as a contribution to charity.”

The 78-year-old was at the forefront of a successful effort to save council-run Chalk Farm Library earlier this year. He said such campaigns applied “as much to the Isle of Man as to NW1”, so great is the risk to the nation’s book collections.

The London Library, whose president is Sir Tom Stoppard, faced its own fiscal cliff in 2010 when it lost its Gift Aid on subscriptions and had to raise membership fees — members were already feeling tender after an 80 per cent rise two years previously. But the Library dodges Bennett’s complaint.

“The London Library is a registered charity and we are very grateful to Alan Bennett for his contribution,” says its chairman Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist. “I would add that he is of course welcome to borrow more, although I am sure he has a very well-stocked library of his own.”

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