Many days I pass our National Library, and I never fail to bestow a silent blessing on those who work within its rooms quietly, rendering service of inestimable value. You cannot easily measure the huge impact on society of children being encouraged to love books and reading.
I have always loved libraries. Sixty-two years have passed since I went to Cambridge and first visited the Seeley Historical Library near the Senate House. In that library I spent some of the happiest hours of my life: I can still recall the special fragrance that wafted through those corridors of books – a mixture of book-stain, old ink, ancient shelves and the apples scholars brought to eat for lunch. On those quiet Autumn afternoons I first seriously embarked on that never-ending adventure which is the search for knowledge and the discovery of new opinion.