I was eight years old when I came to Britain as a refugee - and was not particularly grateful. Mostly this was because after years and years of being a sheep coming to the manger, or a grazing cow, I had at last landed the part of the Virgin Mary in the nativity play at my convent school in Vienna. And then ... Hitler.
We came to London in 1934, a bedraggled party consisting of my fey, poetic mother, my irascible grandmother and confused aunt, and rented rooms in a dilapidated house in Belsize Park which, in those days, was a seedy, run-down part of the city. The house was full of suddenly impoverished refugees facing exile. On every floor were lonely and muddled professors, doctors and lawyers, mostly from German-speaking countries. I had no friends, no school yet, nowhere to play.
Then, one day, waking up the hill towards Hampstead to do some shopping for my grandmother, I came across a building with an open door. I went inside. The room was very quiet and full of books. At a desk sat a woman with fair hair and I waited for her to tell me to go away. But she only smiled at me. Then she said: 'Would you like to join the library?'
My English was still poor but I understood her. In particular, I understood the word 'join' which seemed to me to be a word of unsurpassed beauty. I told her that I had no money and she (her name was Miss Pole ) said: 'It is free.'
Read more... http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jul/09/fiction.featuresDo read her books if you haven't - The Dragonfly Pool is one of my favourites. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/i/eva-ibbotson/
Here is another interview with Eva Ibbotson : http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/aug/25/booksforchildrenandteenagers.familyandrelationships
This article was republished as part of the campaign to encourage adults back to public libraries - see http://www.lovelibraries.co.uk/
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