Dalmuir Library has moved and I’ve moved with it.

Dalmuir Library, Dalmuir Community Centre, Duntocher Road, Clydebank, G81 4RQ

Tilly and me went on our bikes to Dalmuir Library. It’s in the old C.E. Centre. The old Dalmuir School, which features in my book Beastie. A library member had ordered a copy. Evonne, the librarian, asked me which category they should label Beastie under. I wasn’t sure. There wasn’t a category for ‘#arseholes I knew’. I suggested Scottish Noir or Tartan Noir. But that was a bit pretentious. I could have it logged under Historical Fiction or Crime.

Tough call. I should have let Tilly decide. She’s a very beautiful and mature six-year-old. When we coloured in the masks we’d made, cut them out, and sellotaped the backs on, she insisted I wear mine. She demurred. It was too embarrassing.

Beastie is kind of Historical Fiction. Set five years after England won the World Cup. Some folk think that’s not that long ago. But I don’t remember it.

I opted for the Crime categorisation. The librarian said that’s more popular. There are lots of criminals in Dalmuir as I well know. But I don’t think that’s what she meant.

The new-look library is where the Café used to be. I was a regular when they had a Buroo Club. Free fitba. Free snooker and table tennis. Hillwalking. Canoeing. A lifetime ago and it feels like it sometimes. Dalmuir Library has found a home. I’m glad.

As Noam Chomsky reminds us, we go through the usual farrago of running down CE Centres (and our NHS). Shutting them because we say nobody is using them. People drift away or get angry. Imagine how surprised we all are when some errant billionaire provides us with the answer. Privatise, well, not libraries, because nobody reads books and we should all support one of the richest guys in the world, Jeff Bezos, but our NHS. They’ll promise to run them better. Here’s the crime, and it’s not fiction. I don’t mind cutting out a mask and wearing it in a public library. When Tilly grows up, I’m not sure she’ll remember what libraries were. I work for Jeff Bezos too. Every writer does in some shape or form. That’s our crime. Read on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beastie-gritty-hitting-novel-Scotland-ebook/dp/B0CST24KLN