I have an obscenely overdue book, thirty-one years overdue to be exact and I keep promising myself that I will either return it to my old college library or send them something to replace it but the truth of the matter is, I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to walk into the college library and have to admit to my crime, so perhaps an anonymous donation is the way forward instead.
Mind you, the length of time that I have procrastinated over returning this book pales into insignificance when compared to how long ago Arthur Boycott should have returned his school library book.
When he borrowed a copy of The Microscope and its Revelations from his school library in the early 1890s I am sure he had every intention of returning the book promptly but for one reason or another the boy who would become a distinguished pathologist and naturalist simply never got around to taking the book back.
Borrowed from the library at Hereford Cathedral school the errant library book was discovered by Boycott’s granddaughter Alice Gillett when she was sorting through a collection of 6,000 books after her husband’s death this year. With an HCS library stamp on the inside cover, the book’s origins weren’t hard to discover and Alice decided to return it to whence it came enclosing a note apologising for its lengthy absence from the school’s library shelves
“I am sorry to inform you that one of your former pupils, Prof AE Boycott FRS, appears to have stolen the enclosed. I can’t imagine how the school has managed without it!”
Fortunately, HCS, one of the oldest schools in the country, does not charge pupils fees for overdue books. “We don’t want to put them off borrowing books,” a school spokesperson said. “Our pupils are really, really good at bringing them back.” Not so one rather distinguished former pupil who had an entry in the Who’s Who which recorded his recreation interests as “the country” and “snails” and also has his portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. Had he been charged the going rate for overdue books from Hereford Library who charge 17p (21c) a day, the school has calculated that the overdue fine would have been £7,446 ($9362).
I wonder if my former college would be as lenient?
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