Our local library is under sentence of death.

Chalfont St Giles – the village in which John Milton wrote Paradise Lost – could soon be a book-lover’s desert. Buckinghamshire County Council is pulling out. (Villagers and the parish council hope to save the day.)

We should all be ashamed. Libraries are the lifeblood of a civlised society. They spur curiosity about our world. True, the internet brings the world’s biggest library into our homes. But the power of the printed word is still supreme. I remember the joy as a child of browsing the shelves of the old Cardiff central library, knowing that I could sup from that treasure trove of books for a fortnight.

Then it all changed. I took greater pleasure in owning rather than borrowing books. I still enjoy reading – but I’ve lost the breadth of reading that a good library allows. I hope Chalfont St Giles library survives. I’d like to help keep it going. But what a tragedy that local and central government has done so little to celebrate and promote the glory of our public libraries. It’s madness that we squander so much attention on junk culture while our libraries wither away.