RÓISÍN INGLE/BEING THERE:Every week, a big bright yellow bus brings books and a chance to chat to people of all ages in small communities and towns on both sides of the Border
'AYE, YOU DO have to watch those Australian doctors". John McCallion, senior library assistant, is teasing one of his older readers, a white-haired woman who for the past 10 minutes has been engrossed in the contents of a shelf bursting with medical romances. The books, with names such as Outback Engagement or The Doctor's Secret Son, are extremely popular on certain parts of the run.
John drives the mobile library, a big, bright, yellow and blue bus, from Shantallow Library in Derry across to Donegal, crossing the border several times a day. Taking control of the North's only mobile library service, he drives down potholed country roads, over bumpy hills, servicing communities who are up to 15 miles away from the nearest stationary library.
For the most part the more than 2,000 books on display will stay put on the shelves, but he admits that a few wing mirrors have been lost negotiating the trickier corners over the years.
Medical and historical romances. That's the order of this particularly blustery day when the bus stops in the small village of Carrigans, just over the border from Derry in Co Donegal. The first thing John does is activate the satellite on the roof of the bus so that his computer can access the general library system.
Margaret in Carrigans is one of his most prolific readers and she won't read anything except stories of love and romance set in times past. And they must be located in England because she lived there once and "I like to visualise what is happening, I can't visualise it if it's off somewhere in America".
She is here to return seven books and borrow seven more. This is how many she will get through in a week. Every evening her husband sits down in the living room with the remote control in front of the television and Margaret sits down with her books. Most nights she'll be there until 1am.
"When I lift a book I just seem to go into another world," she says. "I suppose it might be escapism. I don't like Mills and Boon, too mushy. I like romances set in war time or in post-war poverty situations." She likes "living in the past" through her reading. "But in my real life I don't like looking back, so that's interesting," she says, looking through a stack of books beginning with the word "slightly".
Slightly Wicked, Slightly Sinful Slightly Tempted. She's read most of them and she has got into the habit of writing her initials on each book as she finishes, leaving a trail across the books so she doesn't take them home only to find she's already had her nose in the saga.
How important is the mobile service? "Oh, I'd be lost without it," she says.
JOINTLY FUNDED BY the Western Education Library Service and Donegal County Council, the mobile library also received funding from the Peace and Reconciliation Fund when the cross-border service first started in 2004. In a nod to the peace money, there are a couple of shelves of books related either to the Troubles or the peace process.
Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, a biography of the late PUP leader David Ervine, or The RUC: A Force Under Fire. One regular reader is doing a thesis on peace and reconciliation so these come in handy. But the Cowboys and Indians and western-themed novels are more popular, especially with older gentlemen, particularly farmers, says John.
He can't keep up with the demand for books with titles like Showdown In Singing Springs or Smoke In The Valley.
"I might try to get them to read other stuff, I might say 'Can I interest you in a nice murder mystery' and the answer is 'no'. They know what they like and are set in their reading habits," he says.
Through narrow roads with hedgerows dotted with daffodils, the bus pulls up a few days later at New Buildings community centre in Co Derry, real red, white and blue kerbstone territory. There has been occasion, in more trenchantly loyalist areas, where locals have taken offence at the Irish language "leabharlann" printed on the side of the bus but for the most part it seems to make no difference to readers that their library service knows no borders.
The Friday "luncheon club" for older people is about to start. Fiona, who runs the club, is waiting for members who pay £3 (€3.85) for a three-course lunch of soup, minced meat with vegetables, and swiss roll with custard. Armchairobics, t'ai chi and yoga are offered after lunch. A big pot of minced meat is bubbling on the stove and the tables are set. But first they'll go and borrow books from John.
Hazel, a woman "coming up to 80", wearing smart, houndstooth-print trousers, likes to read in bed before going asleep. "Oh, I couldn't just turn of the light, I need a book first," she says. Her husband died five years ago but he was always "very understanding" about her reading.
She walks off briskly with her choices under her arm and a man called Sammy steps on. "I've never seen you about before," he tells John. "But this is the way I am, if I see a book I have to stop". His livingroom at home is full of books and so is his bedroom. He favours a mix of "historical and autobiographical" and has a habit of reading three at a time. "My nose is always in a book. If I go to the toilet I take one with me," he explains.
HIS FATHER was "a ferocious reader, desperate for the books". As a child growing up in Co Fermanagh he and his brother would always be fighting over their father's copies of The Saint. He thinks television has spoiled books for children, he calls it "the biggest babysitter" of them all. "You have parents who just stick their children in front of the TV" he says. He'll have lunch now but he won't be doing the t'ai chi afterwards. "I'd be better digging with a spade in my own garden," he muses, leaving without borrowing any books.
NEAR THE TINY village of St Johnson in Co Donegal, John stops beside a row of houses when brothers Keilin (10) and Corey (8) O'Donnell get on.
Both boys have been at the hairdressers recently, their brown hair frosted with peroxide in strategic places. Keilin grumbles to John about the two teeth he's just had extracted. Corey, who says he is into motorbikes, just wants to know whether John will connect the mobile library's laptop to the internet so he can play a game.
"I need to do some research on World War 1 for a school project," says Keilin, all formality, so John gives him a book and the young boy debates the merits of certain strategies during the Great War. "I mean," he says, his eyes peering over the hardback book. "I don't know why they used zeppelins, they are so easily shot down".
The day before, in a school near Carrigans, primary school students were asked to raise their hands if they went to a normal library or if their parents bought them books.
Only a handful stuck up their hands, bringing the value of the mobile service into sharp relief.
When the brothers are gone home we drive past marshes and a damp field full of swans to St Johnson itself, Baile Suingean, a pretty village consisting of a shop, a post office and a pub.
When the mobile library passes, a young mother called Ann Brown is on her hands and knees washing the floor of her kitchen while keeping an eye on nine-month-old Heidi.
"I just saw you passing, while I was doing the floor," she says, running onto the bus out of breath. "And I ran down here because that's exactly what I need. Some books, something to get me out of myself. I'm on maternity leave, stuck indoors all the time and the baby's not been well and I am feeling wild down about myself," she says before lowering her voice. "Self-help, that's what I am looking for".
We go over to the shelf of health books. There's plenty about arthritis and nutrition but nothing that really hits the mark. She's never heard of Anne Enright, but when Enright's non-fiction Making Babies is suggested she says she'll give it a go. Then John comes up trumps with a book called Heal Your Life for which she seems almost giddy with gratitude.
"I mean you are just stuck out here on your own and when I saw the bus, I just said I would go out and see what it was about. How much do I owe you?" she asks John, and she can't believe it when he says she doesn't have to pay. "Just bring them next week and you can get some more," he says. "I will do that," she says rushing outside with Heidi in her arms. She'll be back.
