Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

My favourite places are Libraries. Libraries are magic portals to other worlds. The first magic portal I entered is no longer a library.

Braintree Library was a short walk from my mothers workplace. From a very young age the building became my childcare facility. My mum’s best friend was a Librarian here so that sentence is not as neglectful as it may seem. How I wish I had followed her career path or something similar and had a working life amongst books and words.

Somewhere there must be a couple of theses that I wrote. Gathering dust, written and bound, skulking in a university library. Created before the digital age, they contain my thoughts on medical imaging . There is also a more recent one called Finding the Erotic in Nature, but on the whole my words are unpublished. My anonymous boobs appeared in a medical textbook and a published Fine Art Photography book. Normal boobs, not the glamorous variety. The only book in a library that has me as a named contributor is this one.

And in a way it links back to my early days in Braintree Library. My mothers workplace, close to the library was, a radical at the time, sexual health clinic. When the call out for pillows to commemorate and celebrate women whose work made a difference to society I submitted a design that was accepted for a travelling exhibition and book.

The exhibition went to some fabulous places. Maybe 10 prestigious institutions.

So in one way or another, in a very minor way I will forever be in a library. But in the real world way, whenever my path takes me close to a library and time permits, I am likely to pop in.

For the love of books.