On Where I Wrote It

Miranda:         Today, I helped my lovely little friend by putting the boxes away.

Stevie:              Thank you – and not in the kitchen, slash workstation, slash break area, slash my personal space.

Miranda S1 E1, ‘Date’ (2009)¹

What are you doing for the rest of the day? a friend will sometimes ask me as we part ways. Oh, I’ll be blogging, I reply; don’t know what about yet. My friend, hoping to offer the beginnings of a resolution to my uncertainty, responds by inquiring as to whether there’s any feature of our trip together that might spark off a few hundred words of commentary on my part. I try to explain that my blog doesn’t tend to work like that. I’m far, far more likely to write about an episode of a television series I used to watch when I was at primary school, or a question of scriptural interpretation that’s been bothering me for some time, or indeed both of those things together, the former supplying an analogy for my take on the latter, than to reflect on anything that’s actually happened in my life since I last uploaded a post.

But, as they say, there’s a first time for everything, and, stranded as I am away from my usual stock of reference material for posts about television series I used to watch when I was at primary school and so forth, what I want to talk about this week is where I’m sitting to write this post.

 

A not-very-good photo by me. The desk I mention below is just at the top of those stairs.

I am writing a paper draft of this post sitting at an antiquey-looking desk on the mezzanine floor of a building in Chester called Storyhouse.² Behind me and sweeping round the back wall, and then the opposite wall to my left, are numerous wooden bookshelves stacked with library books, indications of subject sections being chalked on small blackboards topping each one. In the middle of the mezzanine is a single-screen cinema; I believe it’s currently showing The Greatest Showman, which I have had recommended to me from more quarters than I care to mention and should really get round to actually seeing at some point. Around the edges of the cinema room (which kind of looks like some sort of futuristic pod, bright white lit with red round the edges, in contrast to the vintage wooden style of the furniture outside it) is a long desk bearing several computers. Straight ahead of me is the theatre auditorium where a good friend and I went yesterday evening to see a thoroughly ridiculous, thoroughly entertaining sci-fi farce called Police Cops in Space,³ though the advertising informs me that the same room has been playing host to plenty else this year, including musicals, stand-up comedy, opera, family theatre, and so forth. Beneath my feet, I recall from earlier, are more bookshelves, laden, of course, with more books, and a selection of squatter tables and comfier chairs than up here on the mezzanine; on the same level, further to my left, is a café and restaurant, though where the library ends and the restaurant begins is far from clearly delineated. Under the stairs in front of me is a children’s dressing-up area; another area off to my right as I entered the building bore the title of ‘children’s den’; not being a child or having one with me, I refrained from investigating that particular corner of the building any further.

As I entered, the floor proclaimed: Come in. Sit down. You’re safe with us now. There is poetry on the walls here. There is even poetry on the underside of the stairs and on the mirrors in the ladies’ room (I obviously can’t speak for the gents’, but I expect there’s some there too). If I look up and slightly towards my right, I see a life-size peacock perched on a shelf jutting out from the wall. What a space this is: theatre, cinema, library, eatery, and general lovely hangout spot, seamlessly rolled into one.

And it makes so much sense as a concept that I slightly wonder why I’m marvelling at its innovation quite so keenly. ‘Storyhouse’ is the name, and I can think of none more fitting, because this is a building full of stories of all kinds. So fond of stories as I am, it’s little wonder that I’m excited at so many varieties of them clustering together in one handy location which not only understands their curious ability to make everything a little bit better, but spills its understanding thereof onto walls and floors for all to see. This building gets it. I have never been in a building that gets fiction the way this one does. Why is that? Surely it’s not some sheer coincidence that the way I think about stories happens to chime with the way whichever committee designed the Storyhouse collectively thought about stories. Why don’t we put libraries in theatres (and have them stay open as late) and coffee shops in libraries (in such a way that one can actually take one’s chosen beverage with one while browsing the shelves) and splash poetry all over the walls (because when else does the average person actually encounter poetry on any sort of regular basis?). One of the many grudges I bear against most modern cinemas is the way they make me feel like nothing more than a consumer being processed – but if I could have been curled up with a library book and a hot chocolate for an hour downstairs before seeing my film, I wouldn’t feel that way about the proceedings at all. Or, to take another angle, the major issue faced by public libraries at the moment is insufficient funding for staff, which results in reduced opening hours or, in some cases, being forced to convert to ‘community libraries’ run by volunteers (pointing no fingers, *ahem* Lincolnshire County Council *ahem*⁴) – but if your library shares its building and at least some of its staff with one or two more lucrative enterprises, and can stay open according to their timetable, the problem is solved.

So, I reiterate, why don’t we have more Storyhouses about? Why isn’t that the norm for the way access to arts and culture works? Why not have one lovely, welcoming, creative space that does practically everything? And on that note, I’d better type up and tidy up this post, and get it uploaded, before I have to leave – making use of one of those computers at the long desk I mentioned earlier. See, this one space really does do practically everything…

Footnotes

¹ All right, not the most superbly relevant opening quotation I’ve ever managed to think of, but I’m in a rush and I’ve got Miranda on the brain because I’ve been introducing the friend I’m about to mention to it over the past couple of days, so I just ran with the idea of one space serving multiple purposes. Thanks to Springfield! Springfield! for the transcript: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=miranda&episode=s01e01.

² You might want to check out what they have to say about themselves, as well as what I have to say about them: https://www.storyhouse.com/.

³ Created by these talented humans, http://www.thepretendmen.com/, who will apparently be at the Edinburgh Fringe and things this year, so do check out their stuff if you get the chance.

⁴ Only fifteen of the libraries in Lincolnshire are now actually council-run; the rest are staffed by volunteers, to whom as many hats as one has should be gratefully taken off: https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2016/04/new-providers-take-over-lincolnshire-libraries-service/.