Climate Change author to speak at Library AGM

On January 28 2020, we will be hosting our first Author Event of the New Year when we welcome Sarah Holding, who writes for young adults and whose successful SeaBEAN trilogy has been described by former Children’s Laureate Dame Jacqueline Wilson as “A different way of
introducing children to environmental issues”.
Sarah, whose books fall into the burgeoning “cli-fi” or climate fiction genre had been a postman, an architect, a university professor and a community planner before becoming a full-time author.
SeaBEAN tells the story of Alice and five other children living on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda whose life changes when the strange C-Bean Mark 3 shows up and transports them far and wide to New York, Australia and the Amazon rainforest. Their travels soon lead them to understand that there are forces at work which have put the whole planet in jeopardy.
Since SeaBEAN was published in 2013, Sarah has given workshops and talks in over 150 schools, and the trilogy was republished in a compendium edition in 2018. Sarah’s new book Chameleon, which is due to be published in early 2020, is about three genetically engineered humans and is set during the fall of Atlantis, which she speculates happened during an earlier period of intense climate change.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Before Sarah’s talk, the Friends of Molesey Library will hold their Annual General Meeting, which will provide an opportunity to report on our activities during the past year and, as far as possible, to look ahead at possible future developments.
The AGM will start at 7.30 pm and the whole evening is FREE to attend. However, it would be very helpful if you could pick up a ticket at the Library in the usual way so that we are able to gauge numbers attending.

Using Molesey Library is crucial to its survival

The new season, 2019- 2020, of our popular Author Events will be opened by Robin Driscoll on 24th September 2019.The tickets are on sale in the library this week and as ever it is VERY helpful if you are able to buy your ticket in advance as this helps us with set up.
As a point of information, there will be some changes at the library and we said farewell to three of our regular staff during the last two months. I understand that during this period many staff have left the Library Service so at the moment staff seem to be moving between libraries as needed. Hopefully, in the near future staffing issues will be sorted out and we will have a more permanent team again.
I think you are all aware that the Library Service is under review and I have no idea what the future holds. However, I do know that using the library is crucial to its survival so as ever I urge you to use our library as much as you can as footfall (numbers of users going in) and issues (number of books taken out) are measured each month by officers and comparisons are made between all the other libraries.
We look forward to welcoming you on 24th and do remember that we hold a weekly coffee morning every Friday between 10a.m - 12 noon. 

Kind Regards,

Pauline MorozgalskaChair of the Friends of Molesey Library

My career with TV's Mr Bean!

Robin Driscoll, picture credit: Bridport News

After the summer break, our popular series of Author Events at the Library will resume on Tuesday September 24 with a visit from Robin Driscoll, author and former scriptwriter for Mr Bean.
Robin’s early career was spent travelling with the Cliffhanger Theatre Company and performing around the country including, for a number of years, at the Edinburgh Fringe.  There they were spotted by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones and in due course Robin had great success writing for, and taking on supporting roles in, their very successful show Alias Smith & Jones.
Later Robin was asked to join Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis (of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Blackadder fame) in co-writing Mr Bean for Thames Television - the start of a dream job that kept him busy, along with other work, for 25 years.
Now Robin has put scriptwriting aside to write mystery thrillers choosing, as he says, to write what he himself likes to read. He has three fast-paced thrillers already under his belt, the latest of which -Still Warm  - tells the story of NYPD detective Josie King searching for the kidnapper of her young god-daughter.
With such a varied career, Robin will have plenty to talk to us about so please come and join us at the Library at 7.30 pm on September 24 for what promises to be a most entertaining evening. Tickets cost £5 and are available from Molesey Library.

Meet the Author event - Harriet Sandys

The next speaker in our series of Author Events at Molesey Library will be Harriet Sandys who will talk about her book Beyond the Last Blue Mountain.
She will tell us about her experiences as a young woman from a sheltered and privileged background who she set off alone to find out more about the plight of Afghan refugees displaced by the Soviet invasion.
Determined to do something about the refugees’ dire situation, she set up a small silk weaving project for illiterate Turkmen refugees, and was sent by UNESCO to Mazar-i-sharif to work with Afghanistan’s last remaining silk ikat weavers. During those years she was arrested by the KHAD, narrowly missed being blown up, survived acute bacterial meningitis in a Kabul hospital, and rescued an abandoned pi-dog puppy who became her devoted companion.
At the end of the first Gulf War Harriet travelled with the Peshmerga in the newly-liberated Iraqi Kurdistan. Then in 1994 she joined a group of unemployed builders and decorators driving convoys of food and aid from Croydon to the Muslim enclaves in Bosnia Herzegovina.
These days, Harriet continues to raise money for charity through her business selling oriental textiles and remains friends with the refugees she helped in Afghanistan.


Harriet will join us at the Library on WEDNESDAY 24 APRIL 2019 at 7.30 pm. Please note the day - Wednesday - rather than Tuesday when we normally hold our Author Events. We hope you will be able to join us for what promises to be a fascinating talk. Tickets are available from the Library priced £5. We would be very grateful if you could buy your tickets IN ADVANCE as this really helps with planning the event.

Meet the Author event at Molesey Library - Stuart Laing

After the excellent talk about Iraq given to the Friends at January’s AGM by Sir Terence Clark, we are pleased to welcome another career diplomat - Stuart Laing - as speaker at our next Author Event on Tuesday 26 February.
Stuart Laing is co-author of a book on Omani-British history, Unshook Till the End of Time, took an MPhil at Cambridge in 2012 on the abolition of slave trading in the Indian Ocean, and has published a biography of Tippu Tip, the Arab ivory trader of the late 19th century.
His talk for us has the intriguing title Tippu Tip - Ivory, Slavery and Discovery in the Scramble for Africa.
In his Foreign Service career, Stuart Laing specialised in Arab and Middle Eastern affairs and served in Saudi Arabia and in Cairo, and then as High Commissioner in Brunei, Ambassador in Muscat, and later Ambassador in Kuwait. After leaving the world of diplomacy, he served as Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge for 10 years.
We hope you will be able to join us on Tuesday February 26 at 7.30pm - tickets cost £5. It is very helpful for planning purposes if you can commit by buying your ticket IN ADVANCE from Molesey Library.