The ‘written word’ has been one of the most important means of communication for the inhabitants of our planet for some 6000 years albeit in a symbolic or hieroglyphic form – as drawings or ‘cave art’ we can claim with assurance for some 20,000 years.
We take writing and the written word so much for granted and yet it has only been since the Education Act of 1870 that Elementary learning for 5 to 12 year olds, and the Education Act of 1947 which extended that to15, became available for all children regardless of levels of income, social status, ethnic background, class or religious persuasion. So a comparatively recent affair where every individual who may have something they wish to relate to others, in word form, has the ability to do so.
When I first started publishing back in the 1980’s some 70,000 books were published every year in the United Kingdom, that figure now fluctuates around the 140,000 mark which means that many more people are now able to express themselves through the act of creative writing than ever before. Whether their efforts are finally put into print or not may be of little consequence to those whose ‘soul’ aim or need may purely be the act of self-expression itself.
So it is with a measure of sobriety that I wish to celebrate National Book Week as I am concerned at some of the figures which show a dramatic fall in the amount of books read by students in full-time education for instance and in Further Education in particular, usually an area where book-worms run riot. Reading has traditionally been something which we are taught; the ‘habit’ comes from parents, grandparents and other friends or relations reading to us almost from conception. We then learn from watching other members of the family gaining pleasure and relaxation from curling up somewhere with a book, so we ‘try it out’ for ourselves.
Now with so many visual images created by others bombarding our minds from various sized screens our own imaginations have little chance to operate. Reading a book allows that process to happen as we naturally form pictures in our minds of the characters and places described – the imaginal happening within us as we read. And it follows that when we exercise and allow that process, so we create the right atmosphere for our own creativity to ‘happen’. We feel better about ourselves.
Thankfully some schools and libraries will be celebrating this most important of events in our yearly cycle, so why not treat yourself, and those you share your life with, to a good read and don’t forget to celebrate the fact that you can.
