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Interview with John Waters in the Mobile Library  (4th November 2010)
John is the Mobile Library Supervisor for Rayleigh Mobile

Rochford Life: We’re parked here outside Waterman School off the Boulevard in Rochford. Do you stop here every week?
John: We stop every two weeks. We have a fortnightly rota. We stop here on a Thursday but as from the 19th November we are stopping here on a Friday between 10.40 and 11.30.  We get a good take-up from the schools of this area, but not so much from the residents.  The school stopped coming on because of something else happening in the school which is why we are changing the day, but when I have been here it’s been the whole school on so it was a really good take-up. I can’t park in the car park because of size so I have to park out here.      

RL: How would you describe the stock you keep on the van?
John: Well, because I visit all sorts of areas, I have things for elderly people, and of course I visit schools as well and so I have to cater for everyone really. I have lots of fiction, I have large print,  I have talking books, I have DVDs as well. Basically it’s a reduced public library on wheels.

RL: It has a nice feel.
John: Yes, it has and I can change it round to meet people’s needs.  This vehicle is six years old and I’ve been with it for two years. I cover Canewdon on a Tuesday and on the same day do Pagglesham, Hockley and Hullbridge, Ashingdon,  Hawkwell. Then on a Thursday I’ll do all the Rochford Stops, Stambridge, Wakering and Foulness.  I stay here for 50 minutes but it varies. If people want to know where I am they can ring 9845 603 7628 and they’ll be told where I am

RL: Thank you John, that’s been helpful


Below are the timetables covering Rochford and Ashingdon:
The Mobile Library
Times Extract
The following is an extract from the Times on the 5th November 2010

“Parents who want their children to be good spellers should start reading to them early and keep the bedtime stories up long after they can read by themselves, according to the Government’s communications czar.
Jean Gross told The Times that spelling ability could be nurtured from a very young age and that parents should not think they were off the hook once a child was able to read independently.
“Being a good speller starts a lot sooner than we all might imagine,” she said. “Very early on, when little children are hearing speech, they are beginning to hear separate sounds within a word. That grows between the ages of 0 and 5 in the pre-school years. It is on that ability that later written spelling is built.”
Parents should read to their children as they grew up — for “as long as they’ll let you”, said Ms Gross, who is an educational psychologist.
“By reading more complex things to them like the Narnia stories or The Lord of the Rings, then you are developing their vocabulary — as long as you can distract them from their PlayStations and the television.”
The advice is underlined by a survey of children’s reading habits which suggests that many of them think they would benefit from more time reading and writing with their parents.
Ms Goss said that the wider the range of words that a child heard, the better their spelling was likely to be when they got older.


Well folks, that’s what the Library is here for!
Here is an interview with the Supervisor on the Mobile Library plus a snippet from an article about the value of reading to your children. For more on this, CLICK HERE to go to the Rochford Library page