Ilkley online community

It’s the Cinderella syndrome again!

Has the pace of modern living left you without memory of Cinderella?  The one who slogged her guts out for everyone but didn’t get an invite to the ball.  We all know what happened next.  The situation in ilkley is not unlike Cinderella’s.  Only this time it’s not an overworked scullery maid but Ilkley Library. 

Records and photographs show it to be part of the town’s second municipal complex.  The Town Hall in the centre with Library and Assem-bly Hall either side.  A balanced part of the community held in balanced re-gard by all.  Until that is an in-comer appeared and those symmetrical build-ings became lopsided.  Much like the muddled thinking of today.

The Winter Garden compared to Ilkley Library is for functions and not open near every day.  It holds nought but echoes and a few chairs.  Ilkley Library on the other hand is full of inspiration (often lost to those not taught how to search), of knowledge, of history and the arts, of a computer system that de-fies even our kids, and of Library staff all too willing to help.  What do we find if we look hard enough?  Cinderella asking again, “Why have they for-gotten me.”  Why indeed?

What is it about our once proud Library you are afraid of?  The Library Rev-erend Doctor Robert Collyer travelled from the New World to open.  What is it Councillors, for I wish to know?  As do many more in Ilkley and sur-rounding areas.  What is it about our seat of learning that it wasn’t included in the Municipal Building upgrades?  Why has it has been overlooked once again, for the sake of the ‘fur coat and no-nickers’ brigade, we wish to know?

Many squawk about the lack of education especially when entering univer-sity.  How are the youth of the future, if not today, to learn when you allow our library, Ilkley Library, to be run down.  Millions are wasted on trifles, yet when a member of the community wishes to brighten up a corner, they are told there’s not enough brass.  Not enough brass Councillors!  There’s an old Yorkshire saying – where there’s muck there’s brass.  Perhaps if folk washed their cars less, their clothes less, themselves less, cleared their gar-dens less, there would be more brass for our Library.  A piffling amount was requested to brighten up a corner of your town.  Not a multi-million pound bank loan. 

It’s the Cinderella syndrome again!

Who will be wearing the glass slipper in future when our youth fall by the wayside?  Remember The Great Library of Alexandria and the book burning of the middle ages, or Germany and China in the twentieth century.  Are we to return to this in another guise?  Computers and electronic books will fade in years to come.  The Book by comparison has lasted for millennia.  Which are you going to be, The Ugly Sisters, Baron Hardup or Cinderella?

Keighley Library had over a million spent on it.  Manningham Library is to follow, as too Bingley.  Shipley have a completely new building, but Ilkley as ever has to take a back seat.  Well I’ll tell you councillors and anyone else out there, I’m fed up with this town having to take second best.  Ilkley is a sup-posed ‘jewel’ in Bradford’s crown when it suits Bradford.  Forget your city centre duck pond!  It’s time you started cleaning your jewels for a change.  I wonder how many enjoying the centenary celebrations of Ilkley Town Hall will realise Cinderella sits forgotten next door?

In 2007 your representative in Parliament joined 100 others at a reception held by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Libraries in the House of Commons.  The focal point of the exercise was to encourage young people to use their local libraries.  A bit difficult if said libraries are short of staff, short of books, have opening times cut, have computer systems that don’t fully operate.  In all a disgrace to this county and country which gave so much to the world.

To quote your representative in Parliament at the above, “I urge everyone to go along to one of our fabulous libraries to pick up a book.”  Fabulous are they?  Let’s see what the dictionary says – Fabulous.  Incredible, exagger-ated, absurd.  Celebrated in fable.  Legendary.  It’s incredible we still have a working library in Ilkley.  Your representative in Parliament greatly exag-gerates when calling Ilkley Library fabulous.  It is absurd to think otherwise given the state of the fabric compared to the rest of Ilkley’s municipal build-ings.  The computer system is legendary and if nought is done soon it will, in years to come, be celebrated in fable.

One very important point overlooked by the majority, where is the bronze bust of Andrew Carnegie?  I understand it was stolen from Ilkley Library a few years ago and nought has been seen or heard of it since.  Likewise what has happened to the bronze bust of the Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer which lan-guishes somewhere in a Bradford Council cellar?  Lastly when is Ilkley to have the commemorative key, presented to Dr Collyer on the opening of Ilk-ley Library, to be returned to it’s rightful place?  The Parish Office of Ilkley Town Hall.