Beverley & Peter - Royal Free Charity Book Trolley Volunteers A keen and dedicated small group of volunteers look after and take a book trolley to the wards at the Royal Free on a daily basis. Packed with a great selection of books the volunteers visit patients to borrow or chat about novels. There are book boxes on each ward for returns. Every few months we hold a book sale in the Atrium to raise money and pass on older books. Beverley Joining the Royal Free Library team as a volunteer was one of the best things I did since I retired from working for an airline for 35 years in 2005. I have loved reading since I was a child and it has given me endless pleasure throughout my life and sharing this passion with patients is so satisfying. It delights me to select a book from the trolley which I think might interest a patient and see a face light up with interest - I don’t always get it right but that’s amusing too. Of course we are lucky that so many authors live in our area and when we admire the wonderful views from the ward windows, if a patient is a Spy genre aficionado like me I mention the ‘dead-letter boxes’ on the Heath in John Le Carre’s novels. Another delight for us is discovering patients or staff who are themselves published authors and we are fortunate that they have donated their books to the Book Service. The book trolley is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ but we had lots of laughs at the time of the notorious ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ when many male patients joked about not being readers but would be very interested in that book - we admit that we had three donated copies! Sometimes our patients have sight problems but they enjoy talking about books and authors and we can provide talking books for them. And then there are the Kindle readers who are enthusiastic about their books even though they’re doing us out of a job! But most reading patients still love to feel the book in their hands and to have the satisfaction of choosing it from our trolley. Peter
I am Peter and have worked as part of the hospital’s book service for 15 years. I especially enjoy interaction with the patients, discussing tastes and preferences. The personal reasons behind choices are always very interesting. A patient recently chose Penelope Fitzgerald’s Human Voices, set in the BBC during the War, because she worked in Bush House at that time, broadcasting to the Far East. I am an enthusiastic reader and my favourite contemporary writers are John Le Carre, Rose Tremain, William Boyd and Jonathan Coe.
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