(~9 minutes to read)
“Overdue library book returned to school 120 years late” ran the headline on the BBC’s Hereford and Worcester news website in December 2016. The granddaughter of a pupil of the Hereford Cathedral School found the book in her collection and realized that it should have been returned sometime between 1886 and 1894. Late return fines (currently £0.17 per day) would have amounted to around CAD$10,000 at current exchange rates.
I decided to look at my own collection of inherited books, and to my shock and surprise, discovered a copy of Mrs. Arkwright’s Domestic Management Manual in a box along with dusty, yellowed copies of The Daily Bugle newspaper and Street Sweepers’ Monthly magazines. On the inside front cover, the crest of “Coalscuttle Street Private School” was emblazoned, with the address of that noble establishment printed beneath. On the inside back cover was a series of handwritten “out” and “in” dates, the most recent of which was an “out” date—1st April 1817.
My family had acquired the box containing this collection from the lodger of a step-uncle on my maternal step-great-great-step-grandmother’s side in the 1820s. The lodger had apparently died while trying to sweep road apples up from between the legs of a particularly short-tempered dray horse on the Old Kent Road (back when it was just the Kent Road) in London.
Mrs. Arkwright’s book was a precursor to the more popular Mrs. Beeton, according to www.reallyoldboringbooks.co.uk, and I thought it might therefore have some historical value.
Using my advanced web surfing skills, I discovered that the Coalscuttle Street Private School had been compulsorily integrated into the state school system in 1944 and renamed Flying Bottle Primary School. Somehow the building had survived the war, although it has since been demolished and a new school built on the opposite side of Coalscuttle Street.
The local school authority’s website had contact information for the school, so I decided to return the book during my decadal Christmas visit to England. I asked at the school office to speak to the Librarian, and once I’d explained what a Librarian was, was directed to a room a little way down a corridor. I entered.
Me: Ms. McSingh-O’Schmidt-D’Estang?
She: What’s ‘e done now?
Me: I beg your pardon?
She: Scott—‘e’s always puttin’ the boot in at pre-school. I tried ‘im wiv soft squidgy indoor shoes, but ‘e still manages to lay the kids aht wiv ‘em.
Me: I’m not here about your son, Ms….
She: Scott ain’t my son. ‘E’s me boyfriend innee. ‘E works at the daycare.
Me: Ah. (I paused to consider how best to change the subject.) The lady in the school office told me that you’re the school librarian, and…
She: The wot!?
Me: The libr… (and here I adopted my long-neglected East London accent) The bint wot looks ahftuh the skule books.
She: Right. Yeah. That’s me. Why didn’t ya say that instead of “Labian” or wotever it was.
Me: “Librarian”.
She: Wotevv…
Me: I have a book here that belongs to the school. It wasn’t returned by the pupil who borrowed it.
She: I wondered where Pipe Bombs for Pre-teens ‘ad gone. Gissit ‘ere.
Me: Actually, it’s Mrs. Arkwright’s Domestic Management Manual.
She: O-h-h-h-h. Mrs. Arkwright’s classroom is down there, second on the left. She teaches Graffiti.
Me: Allow me to explain further.
She: O-k-a-y…
Me: This book’s title is Mrs. Arkwright’s Domestic Management Manual, and it was borrowed from this school’s predecessor, Coalscuttle Street Private School, in 1817.
She: Why didn’t you say? Now I understan’—you’re just a complete and utter effin’ ‘eadcase!
Me: (opening the book and showing the school crest) Flying Bottle Primary School used to be called Coal Scuttle Street Private School…
She: Oh very poash—how la-de-da!
Me: …and the lodger of a very distant ancestor of mine was a pupil there in the 1810s. He must have borrowed this book from the school library and either forgot to return it or deliberately kept it.
She: And I care because…
Me: It’s school property of course.
She: P’zession’s nine tenfs of the fingymabob—you’ve got it, it’s yours.
Me: No, no no! That’s not how it works. I live by the Golden Rule, and because I’d expect people to return my property to me if they found it, I must return this to its rightful owner. The Flying Bottle Primary School.
She: Lessavvalook. (She plucked the book unceremoniously from my grasp, and opened it.)
Christ! It doan ahf pen and ink!
Me: Old books do have a characteristic smell; I actually like it.
She: Each to ‘is own. So… where’s the barcode?
Me: Barcode?
She: Yeah. Wivout a barcode I can’t do anyfink wiv it.
Me: It’s two hundred years old! Barcodes weren’t invented then!
She: Really? ‘Ow d’ya know?
Me: Because there was no technology around to read them!
She: Okay Mr. Knowitall; if they ditn’t avv barcodes, ‘ow did they know which shelf to put the book on?
Me: My guess is that they would have shelved the books alphabetically, by title.
She: Alfawhotickly?
Me: (Beginning to see the enormity of the task before me) Never mind. They would have put all the blue books together and all the black ones on another shelf…
She: That makes sense… ‘Ere! It ain’t got no ISBN eevuh!
Me: (Sighing) No. I’m sorry. (I paused to think of a plausible explanation that I thought she would understand.) A bookworm got into it last week while I was watching Big Brother on the telly and it ate the page with the ISBN on.
She: Well, you’ll avv to pay for the damage, y’know. And then there’s the late return fines. Lemme see… It was due back on April 1st 1817. Let’s just call that 200 years late, eh?
Me: Why not?
She: So 200 years at 365 days per year, plus 50 leap years, that makes seventy-free fahsand and fifty days. Lates are charged seventeen pee per day this year, wiv free percent per year penalties on previous years’ outstandin’ fines. Let’s say inflation ‘as been on average two percent per year for the last two ‘undred years… Bugger! I need me calculator fer this one.
Me: Your mental arithmetic isn’t up to calculating interest on an amount that you have to determine by retroactively removing inflation?
She: Wot?
Me: Just admiring your calculator, Ms. McSingh-O’Schmidt-D’Estang.
She: Nice, innit? Scott nicked it from W. H. Smiffs.
Me: Tucked it in his inflatable bootees, did he?
She: ‘Course not! They’re ‘is indoor shoes. Right. If I’m not mistaken, you owe me nine fousand, five ‘undred and sixty-six pound and firty-seven pee.
Me: Do you take Mastercard?
She: Is it yours?
Me: Of course it is!
She: That’s what they all say! Cash or… your iPhone with the unlock code.
Me: That’s outrageous!
She: Take it or leave it…
Here, she picked up the book and started thumbing through it.
She: Bleedin’ ‘ell! It says ‘ere that to ‘elp a person who’s nearly drownded, you stick the end of a pair of bellows up ‘is nose and blow like buggery!
Me: Yes, it was an early attempt to provide advice on artificial respiration.
She: Y’know wot? If it’s got any more ideas like that in ‘ere, it’ll be the most popular book in the school! So many new ways to mug people!
Me: I don’t think that’s what it’s intended for.
She: (She thumbed a little further through the book) Where’s the pictures?
Me: It was very difficult and expensive to add illustrations to books before the twentieth century.
She: Oh… right… they ditn’t avv Photoshop back then, did they.
Me: No… (sighing deeply) All they had was Microsoft Paint… back then.
She: Yeah. S’pose you’re right. Anyway; wivout pictures, this book’s no good to us. Tell ya wot? Why don’t you take it to my bruvvah’s Rare and Collectible Bookshop on the Old Kent Road? You never know, it might be wurf a few bob.
Me: Are you sure? I mean, if it is worth money, perhaps the school should benefit from it? You could buy something that would benefit the children.
She: Great idea! Some of the tasers ‘av bin acting up lately—p’raps we can get new ones.
Me: Sounds a little draconian.
She: Wot?
Me: Great idea—I’m sure the teachers will appreciate better tools to maintain classroom control with.
She: The tasers ain’t fer the teachers—the kids use ‘em to get the teacher’s attention.
Me: (Eyeing the open doorway nervously) Well, I must be going. I’ll just leave this book here on the desk, shall I?
She: ‘kay. See ya.
Me: Bye.
As I left, I passed a lady carrying a small package, which emitted an aroma very much like that of an old book. Curious, I stopped to listen.
Lady: Ms. McSingh-O’Schmidt-D’Estang?
She: What’s ‘e done now?
Lady: I beg your pardon?
She: Scott—‘e’s always puttin’ the boot in at pre-school. I tried ‘im wiv soft squidgy indoor shoes, but ‘e still manages to lay the kids aht wiv ‘em.
Lady: I’m not here about your son, Ms….
She: Scott ain’t my son. ‘E’s me boyfriend innee. ‘E works at the daycare.
Lady: Ah. Uhm… I wanted to return a book that an ancestor of mine borrowed a long time ago. It’s called Mrs. Arkwright’s Domestic Management Manual.
She: Borrowed somewhere around 1817?
Lady: Why yes; how did you know?
She: That’s why they pay me the big money ‘ere. So the late return fine is nine fousand, five ‘undred and sixty-six pound and firty-seven pee.
Lady: Which I assume is a number plucked from the air?
She: Nah. Do the riffmetic yerself.
Lady: In any case, I wasn’t expecting to pay any fine. I just thought it right and proper that I should return it.
At this point, I felt compelled to return to the classroom and join in the conversation.
Me: Excuse me: I couldn’t help overhearing. By an amazing coincidence, I returned a copy of the same book not five minutes ago!
Lady: There’s no such thing as coincidence…
And then a well-known reality show host popped out from a nearby broom cupboard and said, “Congratulations both of you! You’ve won the top prize in this week’s ‘The Golden Rule’! You didn’t know it, but we planted those books in your houses for you to find. Inside, there are tiny GPS tracking devices that tell us where the book is. The only amazing coincidence here is that both of you arrived at the same time!”
As he was speaking, I spotted a camera operator. He was crouching behind the teacher’s body armour cabinet. My aversion to reality shows is well-known, and I left no doubt about it when the camera operator discovered that small format video cameras aren’t small enough for where his ended up.
Which is why I’m writing this article from the nearby police station.