Sir – My father and his siblings all left school at 13. Libraries gave them not only the books to study from but a space to study in.

They gained a variety of qualifications ending up as eg clerk to the Norwich Markets, an aeronautical draughtsman, head gardener of Norwich Parks and Gardens and a specialist bookbinder, who worked on volumes damaged by the flooding of Venice in the 1960s. We in Bampton agree with Cicero who wrote that “If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need”.

How do I know he wrote that? I read it in a library.

Lynne Pointer, Bampton