Bernard Green 1944-2011
Bernard Green died on 19 November 2011.
Bernard started his library service career in September 1960 working as a library assistant for Shoreditch Borough Council in East London. He passed his ‘Entrance’ examination at the nearby North West Polytechnic, and took the two-year professional course at the College of Librarianship Wales, Aberystwyth, from 1966 to 1968. On his return to what was by then the London Borough of Hackney he was put in charge of the Kate Greenaway Children’s Library, subsequently becoming Deputy Branch Librarian.
In 1970 Bernard became Librarian at Bridport in rural west Dorset. It was here that he met his wife Ann, and Bernard spent the rest of his career in the Dorset library service.
Bernard was promoted steadily within Dorset. In 1975 he was appointed Lending Librarian at the Lansdowne Library, at that time the main library in Bournemouth, which was then part of the Dorset service. A major growth area at the time was developing library services to housebound people.
By 1983 Bernard made a further move to a management post based at Christchurch, as Group Librarian managing a range of very different libraries from the Hampshire border to the Bournemouth suburbs.
At Christchurch Bernard found himself in an historic town with a worldwide diaspora whose library was often contacted by people wanting to research local and family history. Bernard regarded as one of his greatest achievements the founding of the successful Christchurch Local History Society that has been running now for more than twenty years, still based at the town’s library. Determined to put the library firmly at the heart of the community, Bernard established an impressive and varied programme of winter-time weekly events and talks, which established such a reputation that he had a waiting list of potential speakers. These regularly attracted audiences of a hundred or so.
At the local government reorganisation of 1997, Bernard remained with the new Dorset library service and took on the post of Operations Manager East. It was my great privilege to work closely with Bernard from this point in his career until his retirement in 2002. Bernard masterminded a number of smoothly executed library refurbishments, at which his strategic planning skills came to the fore.
One project that he started was the long-awaited extension of Christchurch Library. This was an uphill project with a very protracted genesis in which he kept a keen interest after retirement, and at the time of his death he knew that the County Council was, in the face of network cutbacks, at last able to start on bringing this major project to fruition.
I got to appreciate first-hand the many qualities that Bernard had, well-known to all his many colleagues; his loyalty and support, his willingness to shoulder responsibility and go beyond what the job demanded, his breadth of interest in all aspects of the service, his supreme enthusiasm, his ability to sum up an arduous discussion at management meetings, and above all his likeability. There was no side to Bernard – he treated everyone the same, and was respected for it. Recently Bernard told me that he regarded the last years of his career with the team we had in East Dorset as the happiest days of his 42 year career. But Bernard always saw the positive in whatever he was doing, whatever that entailed. Even throughout the rapidly progressing motor neurone disease that took him from us at the age of 67 he was writing to CILIP about library cuts, and contributing to a BBC debate about Lord Falconer’s commission on assisted dying, feeling that the pro-suicide aspect was getting more of an airing than the positive aspects of life that he saw around him.
42 years in local government is not likely to be equalled nowadays. At his retirement party in 2002 Bernard was proud of having made a 42 minute speech without once, as he proudly recalled, referring to any notes.
Bernard is survived by his wife Ann and their son David and daughter Jenny.
To commemorate the centenary of Convent Walk the CLHS is erecting a blue plaque beside the Gin Hatch door. This new plaque is cast from 100% recycled aluminium and will be the first to be erected by the Society since the Millennium Trail was created over a decade ago. It will be unveiled by former Mayor and local historian Mike Hodges at 10.15am on Wednesday 22 June 2011. CLHS members are invited to attend this commemoration of the town’s history.