April 7, 2017

8.00 am: My traditional breakfast treat at the ‘inn’ across the road. 9.30 am: Back at the library:

Since my last visit, the Reference section has been converted into an educational room for the Newport Community Learning project. (It was empty.) The loss of the rooms’ former function makes academic study difficult. Books and journals are no longer on the open shelves. They have to be fetched from other parts of the building — which takes time. I’ve been catered for, though. A desk and chair has been set up for me. But who will consult material that they cannot see and access easily? Surely that’s what learning in the community is all about — finding things for oneself (which is the best experience of education one can ever have). My mother was a Library Assistant at Abertillery’s town library during the latter part of her life. After school, I’d hole up in the basement reference room (which was invariably empty, too) and pour over typewritten histories of the locality. I needed to know the past of my present — to discover what had been lost, over-written, and untaught. In school, I’d learned of English kings and queens, but was told nothing about the Industrial Revolution, the vestiges of which I could see from the library window.

I took an extended lunch and made off for Cardiff to visit the Gillian Ayres exhibition at the National Museum Wales. Her works are sumptuous, succulent, and sensuous; she’s one of our great colourists. Painting is about movement, the trace of the brush as it tracked across the support. Ayres’ works makes a virtue of this attribute. On this journey south, I’ve not had time to visit my home town in the valleys. My consolation was seeing L S Lowry’s magisterial Six Bells, Abertillery (1962), which is also at the museum. By 3.15 pm, I was back at my seat in Newport library. I’d been well fed. 5.00 pm: Closure.

6.45 pm: Having rested up ad touched-base with home, I headed out into the town to search for a place to eat. Loud gangs of smartly dressed twenty-somethings unsettled the evening shoppers:

The better restaurants were booked up. (It was Friday evening, of course). I settled for Mexican food at an ‘ok’ eatery:

8.00 pm: Reflection.

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