Perils of Picton

The first time I saw the famous Picton Library in Liverpool, its smoke-blackened pillared
dome was rising out of the early morning January gloom like a grubby beached whale.
An intimidating sight for someone fresh from school in his first real job.

Closer acquaintanceship did little to dispel this apprehension. The great domed reading
room was merely the centrepiece of a seemingly endless warren of libraries, corridors,
cellars and bookstacks, which after a brief guided tour from a more experienced
colleague full of warnings about senior members of staff and their foul tempers, one was
expected to circumnavigate unaided.

Like most employers in the late 1960’s, Liverpool Libraries were a very hierarchical set-
up, with a clearly defined status for all of their staff. Top of the pile was the City
Librarian. One of the last men in Liverpool to wear a bowler hat, “Dr C” was a grimly
forbidding character who always reminded me of Andrei Gromyko, then the granite-
faced Soviet Foreign Minister. His mere entry into a library department, unsmiling and
gimlet-eyed, would cause a chilled silence to fall. And even members of the public,
unwise enough to have removed their jackets whilst sitting studying, would be tersely
commanded to put them on again. Such was “the Doctor’s” autocratic power that female
members of staff were required to request (in writing) his permission before marrying.
The tale was told, with shudders, of the time when a new member of staff, feeling unwell,
was persuaded by wicked colleagues to go and ask the Doctor (he was actually a PhD),
for advice. It was the equivalent of throwing a live chicken into a tiger’s lair…..

Below the Doctor, and generally regarding him with a mixture of fear and sardonic
amusement, came his departmental heads. In those days, character and length of service
rather than qualifications were the criteria for promotion. So most, by modern standards,
were elderly, with idiosyncrasies and eccentricities which had flowered over the years.

The Doctor's deputy “Griff” as he was known, was an iracable red-faced Welshman with
a remarkable resemblance to Mr Punch. A naval officer during the Second World War, he
intended to address the staff in much the same way he had no doubt harangued his crew.
He always had an air of bustling business when visible, rushing round with huge file of
papers under his arm, though the more observant noted that the contents of the file never
changed. It was a subject of debate whether the Doctor or the whiskey would kill him
first. It was in the event the whiskey.

The Reference Librarian and Chief Cataloguer had earned their titles in a day of muddy
water-logged glory, when in the May Blitz of 1941, they had toiled amid the smouldering
ruins saving hundreds of precious volumes from the ashes. It was said, perhaps a touch
unfairly, that they had never done a day’s work since. Certainly, after the Reference
Librarian had, as was his habit, lunched well in a gentleman’s club, it was not uncommon
to be approached by a member of the public, and told diffidently. “There’s a gentleman
asleep behind his desk over there. Is he all right?” He was…
He was regarded, on uncertain grounds, as being the library’s expert on identifying and
valuing books brought in by the public. His technique was one I later copied. Stroke the
book lovingly, smile gently, remark, in reverential tones, “ beautiful binding”, hand it
back and stalk slowly away with impressive dignity. It always worked like a charm.

His other claim to fame was as the brother of the man who owned the barber’s shop in
Penny Lane immortalised a few years previously by the Beatles. A family, as he often
proudly told me, descended from the court barber to Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s cavalry
commander and later King of Naples, shot in 1815, after which barber and family had
fled to England.

Next in the hierarchy to the Reference Librarian, and forever victimised by him , was his
Chief Assistant. A diffident little man, a keen chorister, and counter-tenor, who had a
slightly disconcerting habit of bursting into song in a high falsetto voice. He always
travelled to work by bicycle, and as protection against wet weather, had made for
himself a rather striking ensemble from plastic cattle feed bags. His entry into the great
Reading Room thus attired would cause a few slightly raised eyebrows among innocent
members of the public. Despite having lived and worked in Liverpool for many years, he
had an undying aversion for the city and its inhabitants, and his last working day before
retirement was marked by his arrival carrying a packed suitcase, and his departure at 5
pm , declining a farewell ceremony, for Lime Street Station and a train to his beloved
native Suffolk, never to be seen in Liverpool again.

His deputy, on another rung of the complex hierarchy, specialised in the antiquarian book
collection, and always favoured a rather impressive black velvet-like jacket. He also
adored then exotic foodstuffs, such as pate, and it was claimed, probably incorrectly,
caviar. His digestive system was less enamoured however, and his post –meal spells of
duty would be marked by thunderous eruptions of various kinds echoing across the great
reading room. This had, and still has, the unusual acoustic property that even a whisper
emitted at a certain spot in the room can be clearly heard on its far side. It was perhaps
unfortunate that Mr S’s desk was situated at this exact spot….

Then there was the Deputy Art Librarian, a statuesque figure with fiery red (dyed) hair,
clad in flowing violet diaphanous garments, and looking like a nightmarish cross between
Elizabeth I and Tatania , Queen of the Fairies. Her claim actually to be a Martian , and
therefore exempt from paying bus fares, was often offered to bus conductors… She
seemed to walk to work an awful lot….

Below these, to a young man, legendary and awe-inspiring figures, came a veritable
galaxy of staff on various “grades”. I, and my contemporaries, male and female, were
regarded as the librarians of the future, and supposedly put through a two year-induction
scheme befitting for this honour… It may be significant, that although we have moved on
to various fates, including a poet , a well-known writer of horror stories, a British Army
sniper in Northern Ireland, a guest of Her Majesty,(for stealing library books) and a
writer on military history, not one of us has ended our working lives as a librarian….
Then there were, in those unenlightened days, what were in the library caste system the
“untouchables”, book binding staff, carpenters, electricians, porters, shelf attendants,
cleaners. Their status marked by being forbidden use of “the staff room”, itself with
tables allocated on strictly hierarchical lines, these folk were the denizens of gloomy
underground “kitchens”, strange smoky rooms full of racing papers and betting slips, and
calendars of a rather racy sort; caverns into which one occasionally stumbled by accident,
and never felt entirely certain of leaving alive.

The Picton Library of those days was seen as one of the great libraries of the British Isles,
and the Doctor’s ambitions were Napoleonic in their scope. One was his love of hosting
international library conferences there.

A rather (to me) endearing feature of the Picton Library was the prominently displayed
notice informing users that “owing to enemy action there may be some delay in
producing your books”. This, 26 years later, always seemed a rather lame excuse. On the
eve of one of the Doctor’s international extravaganzas, I was gazing absently at this sign,
when from behind me came an all-too familiar softly menacing voice: “What are you
staring at?” One thinks quickly when faced by imminent death and I said to the Doctor
(for it was he)” I was just wondering, as we have a German delegation attending, whether
perhaps….” “You think like me, Mr Barratt”, he said approvingly “Shackley (the
carpenter , hovering in anxious attendance ) cover it up!”. In a later age “Don’t mention
the war”, would have come to mind….His rather double-edged comparison gave me a
few sleepless nights afterwards, but may well have stood me in good stead, when, after
various library wanderings, including being honorary librarian to a coven of
Gloucestershire witches, I returned to Liverpool to be appointed Local History Librarian
and one of the Doctor’s principal partners in crime… And in “the Night of the Long
Knives” which followed his translation to higher things on the international stage, or at
any rate to Australia, exile to Toxteth…. But that's another story….

In those days, mainly because of the aforementioned “enemy action”, much of the lesser
used, and indeed never-used, library stock was housed in various warehouses around the
city. One such was in the inappropriately named Paradise Street. A grim grey building,
still redolent with the scent of eastern spices from its more exotic past, and with
cavernous cellars which filled with sea water at spring tide, for this area had once been
part of the “pool” which had partly been the origin of the city’s name.

It was presided over by one of the library attendants. Tommy was a little grey man, with
a pointy face and prominent teeth, who , so legend had it, actually lived in the warehouse.
He was devoted to its colony of rats, and fed them each day on cat food. “Lovely coats,
they have!” he would say proudly.

A dreaded duty of us humble library assistants was a never-ending task in Paradise Street
of sorting and boxing a huge collection of 19th century Parliamentary publications, acts,
statutes, blue books and similar esoteria. They were mouldy, damp, and had received the
enthusiastic attention of Tommy’s rats. On a rota we were expected to spend two hours
there on afternoons which were always foggy, cold and wintry. And temperatures in that
warehouse were sub-Arctic. There was an ancient stove, but no fuel for it… Or rather,
there wasn’t until one of us thought of the Parliamentary papers. Huddling round it and
its sullenly smouldering contents did just about keep the frostbite at bay. And the
Reference Librarian, who for a reason which still escapes me, regarded this malodorous
collection of old cast-offs as “precious”, was jolly impressed with our apparent progress
in diminishing the chaos…

I last met the Doctor many years later, when , he and Australia having reportedly parted
company on terms of mutual hatred , he had retired to the Shakespearian pleasures of
Stratford upon Avon. Amazingly, he was smiling, and I considered telling him the tale of
the Parliamentary papers… But the smile… somehow it reminded me of that of a
crocodile which has just enjoyed a large juicy lunch, but which could still find space for
another tasty morsel…. “Better not”, I thought….