The library in the Somerset village where I lived as a teenager was small and square and had once been a shop. It was only open on certain days, including Saturday. This was when I usually visited. Luckily I had quite simple reading needs at the time and these bookshelves supplied me well. Pony books, pony books and more of the same. Arriving in Somerset from sophisticated Sevenoaks at age 11, I learnt to horse ride, I collected china horses, loved watching The Horse of the Year Show on television and endlessly devoured any stories about horses. I’m not sure this genre still exists but in the early sixties certain authors were doing very well churning out these books.
Monica Dickins, Judith Berrisford and amazingly 3 writing sisters: Josephine, Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson. Their output was prolific and not particularly literary when I think back but I loved them at the time. Essentially they all had very similar story structure, frequently based around The Pony Club and often with one girl who in some way or other was an irritant to the main characters. Inevitably all was resolved satisfactorily in the end.
A good reading memory but I didn’t like the smell of the library. Not sure what kind of shop it had been previously!