The Next 20 Years
Priya Raghunathan, 71
Coordinates a nine-village book exchange network and a weekly reading hour for children
“Useful work did not become less useful because I got older. It only became harder to get invited to.”
Question 1
What did you think your life would look like at this age?
Looked after, and slightly to one side. I taught secondary mathematics for thirty-four years and then did nothing in particular for six. I assumed seventy-one would be family, some reading, a little travel, and being consulted occasionally on things I used to be an authority on. The being consulted part did not happen. That was the surprise, and it was not a pleasant one.
Question 2
What changed?
Our village library closed, along with four others in the county. I went to the consultation meeting expecting to be angry with someone and instead found eleven other people who were also there on their own. Two of them had been librarians. What changed was not a feeling. It was discovering there were eleven of us in one room and no structure between us.
Question 3
What are you building now?
Nine collection points across nine villages — a pub, a church porch, a farm shop, a bus shelter with a cabinet we built — with books moving between them in the boot of whoever is driving that way. Roughly two thousand titles circulating. And on Thursdays, a reading hour for children in the village hall, which matters more than the books do. Twenty-two children come. Six of them arrive without an adult, which tells you something about what the hour is actually providing.
Question 4
What did you have to stop believing about yourself?
That asking for help is a debt you take on. I ran my classroom alone for thirty-four years and carried that habit straight into this. For the first year I drove every route myself and was exhausted and quietly resentful, and it was entirely my own doing. The network only worked when I put up a paper rota and let people sign their own names to a leg of it. Fourteen drivers now. I do two.
Question 5
What is your next stride?
Timing. The reading hour is on Thursday at four because that was when the hall was free in the first week, and I have never once tested whether that is the right hour. I am moving it to Friday for a term and counting the difference, rather than guessing at it for another two years.
The numbers
9 collection points, about 2,000 titles in circulation, 14 volunteer drivers, 22 children at the weekly reading hour.