World Book Night - How It Went

The Arrow is On The Train!

The Crew Stalked by Matt Damon

Last Night was the night , 50 copies of Northern Lights were picked up from the West End Library in Newcastle , given to me by a very pleasant lady librarian , in the middle of dealing with very rude and ungrateful eastern europeans.

 
 Luckily my friend Helen and here three children were up for the adventure which was originally planned as this:

• Start at Palmersville
• Then Tynemouth to distibute books
• Then to Wallsend
• Then back to the Airport via South Gosforth
• Then to Central Station, Newcastle
• Then Home

A Change of Plan Is Needed

This was shot down as soon as we got to Palmersville as there were no trains running between Tynemouth and Byker , so that meant Wallsend , with it's lovely Latin inscriptions was out!

So we changed plans and made for the airport via South Gosforth , and finally got there after dark. The kids were really excited , lugging to bags of books to distribute to an unsuspecting public. The first book went to a couple , with a large luggage trolley , and small child in a pushchair who'd just landed from Singapore who were happy to take the first book from us , but were obviously very tired!!

We noticed the airport was actually quite empty , very empty in fact. It turns out there was on flight going out that night and the few people who were waiting seemed to be obviously Jewish or Middle Eastern , so maybe not the best people people to try and give the books to , given it's religious overtones.

FRom The Airport To South Gosforth

We changed tack and decided to change to target the people behind the desks. First up was the guy at the Greggs outlet , who had the the other parts of the trilogy but not "Northern Lights" . He was very enhtusiastic and said we'd made his night!!

The Crew At Whitley Bay

Then it was back to South Gosforth , over the bridge and distributing more books , before catching a Metro to Monkseaton , then on to Tynemouth where we got back on the train and went back to Whitley Bay. Then we waited an age for another train before going back to Palmersville and distributing the last of the books along the way.

The timing and distances were a lot more that I'd originally thought they would be , and couldnt have done it withoput help from Helen , Oliver , Jessica and Eve - so a big thank you to all of them!!