For fifty-five years, the town had boasted a purpose-built library: a square, flat-roofed brick affair built just after World War Two with cast iron windowframes, community spirit and coke-fired radiators.
At its inception, the Muddleyford Municipal Community Centre and Library's central location had owed more to the Luftwaffe than to coherent municipal planning: in November 1941, a straggling Heinkel 111 had jettisoned a recalcitrant bomb on its second return flight from Coventry to Laval.
Upon contact with the third row of seats in the Muddleyford Empire Picture Emporium (locally known as "the bug-pit", and, mercifully, closed for fumigation on that particular night) the bomb had exploded with teutonic efficiency, slightly injuring one cat and incendiarizing five thousand fleas.
Thus the town had been endowed with a building-site, and generations of Muddleyforders had learned to tango, then bingo, then disco within the walls of the building which the site had accommodated for half a century.
In ignorance of any irony whatsoever, the local council decided that the £2250 heating bill for the poorly-insulated MMCCL was the last straw in 2010. This, and the swingeing cuts to local government funding by the privately-educated whizzboys of the new National Coalition had sealed the building's fate. The council's majority pronounced itself fortunate to have found a local property developer to, as he phrased it, "assist with their investment planning".
The developer, (whose brother-in-law happened to be chairman of the council planning committee), had wasted no time in demolishing the library, and in making the most of its prime position near to the town's Norman Church. The view from the church doorway now led the eye across the lawned graveyard to the gleaming façade of Muddleyford's latest feature; between Pound Paradise and Booze Bonanza, bi-chrome neon script announced:
"Tans & Nails Am Us"
Part of the council/developer deal had been the provision of premises to house the library. (The provision of a Community Centre had become, as one council official stated: "a mute [sic] point in the Muddleyford of today".)
Resultingly, Ettie was now seated in a converted shop in the recently-revamped 1960's shopping precinct, half a mile from the town centre.
The revamp, ordered in 2011 on the whiff of a rumour that the Olympic Torch might pass that way the following summer "with perhaps even a visit by The Duchess of Corwall on the day before", had involved the installation of four litter bins. These sported a "Diamond Jubilee" logo. Additionally, a crew of five Polish gentlemen applied liberal amounts of heritage green paint and re-laid broken slabs.
Now the precinct looked only semi-derelict. It smelled mainly of Pukka Pies, vinegar and drying Dulux.
The (Conservative) council leader at the September meeting had declared the precinct "fit for a visit by the consort of our future monarch, indeed, perhaps our future Queen". A wag from the (Labour) opposition had mumbled "Camilla must think the whole world smells like fresh paint by now, anyway". The LibDem, who had recently begun to distance herself from the Tory seats, had stifled a laugh into her Kleenex.
Prior to the precinct's make-over the shop which was destined for use as the library had lain unused for some years. It had housed, through the seventies and eighties; a TV repairers; a Chinese takeaway; a dry cleaner's and then in the late nineties a photography studio which had closed after police Internet tracking technology caught up with cyber-crime, and suspicions that it was more than just a front for a porn site had proven to be well-founded.
So, on this mid-week day, Ettie had just collected her pension from the Post Office counter in the back corner of the seven-day convenience store, and was carefully stowing her purple plastic card and the dozen ten-pound notes in her handbag.
In the casual-friendly, working-class manner which came naturally to most native Muddleyforders, she addressed the librarian.
"Adoo Duck. Ah'm feelin' a bit middlin' this mornin. Fancy a birrova sit down. Yer doe mind, dooyer? Avyer gorreny books on Local 'Istry?"
She asked the librarian lady.
The latter, a kindly soul with huge 1980's tortoiseshell spectacles, rose from her stool, and swooped, silent as an owl, towards the plate-glass window. She returned with a smile and wordlessly some moments later.
Ettie examined the cover.
It was a hardbound copy, proclaiming itself to be one of a limited edition, released by the Muddleyford Townswomen's Guild on the occasion of The Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second:
"Muddleyford through the Ages".
This edition had even been signed by one "Getrude Whiteley, chair of the MTG"
"Ta, Duck, tharrel do".
She pushed her handbag to the side of the library's solitary tub-chair, shuffled into a comfortable position, clicked her dentures into place, and began to read page three:
"Muddleyford: a (very) Potted History"
"The earliest written record relating to our town goes back to the Domesday Book in 1086, when William the Second's inquisitors reported their arrival in the area"
Ettie sucks slowly on her Extra-Strong Mint before continuing to read the extract from an eleventh-century Norman text, which had been faithfully transcribed by the Townswomen's Editorial Committee back in 2002:
"Avec difficultye we traverséd a rivière, sire Gaston tombéd de son cheval gris dans le mud, et suggera un nom: Le Ford très Muddy. OK Gaston, j'ai dit, avec humour, mais un peu plus...zippy, non? Peut-être...Muddy-le-Ford?
Page four went on to explain to Ettie, who by now was on her third mint, and who was considering whether she could break wind without aural or olefactory detection, that Muddy-le-Ford mutated to Muddleyford as the local Mercian Midland aversion to anything French gained the upper linguistic hand.
"Because of the local coal deposits, a plentiful supply of water from the River Mude, as well as its position on the edge of the Black Country, Muddleyford developed from a medieval market town with a population of just a few hundred, into the thriving centre of iron nail manufacture during the Industrial Revolution..."
Ettie had read enough. She looked towards the boarded-up windows of The Grey Horse. It was beginning to rain and she needed to start that half-mile walk home.
The library lady put down her coffee mug and efficiently swiped Ettie's card.
"Ah'm feelin a bit berra now. Ah'll be tekkin this wum fera good read ifyer doe mind, Duck"
Ettie waited until she was well clear of the precinct before leaning on her aluminium stick and farting. She also let out a low chuckle, making her dentures rattle. She instantly felt a lot less middling.
As she walked past the Domesday Nursing Home towards her council bungalow, she reflected that the serendipitous unearthing of the book might be an omen for the week.
Ettie looked forward to a cup of PG Tips and a good, long read...
