Wild but not Free

Nicola Garrard writes about remote rural libraries and the middle-grade inspiration behind her new YA/crossover novel, On the Edge a gritty YA novel which asks the question: What would you do if the life you were promised was taken from you? What would you do to get it back?

Growing up in South Devon in the 1970s and 1980s, my tiny Dartmoor primary school (around 55 pupils) received a fortnightly visit from the mobile library bus. The sound of its horn tooting in the playground caused more excitement than the arrival of an ice-cream van. I can still remember climbing the steep metal steps, the smell of the books, and the mysterious interior, fitted with wooden shelves secured by net curtain ties and bars to stop the books falling in transit.

All pupils were automatically issued with library membership cards. I borrowed as many pony adventure books as I was allowed - titles by Christine Pullein-Thompson, Patricia Leitch, Judith M. Berrisford and Ruby Ferguson. Horse thieves! Veterinary emergencies! Night-time rescues! I was already surrounded by semi-wild ponies and used to carrying out my own animal rescues, hoiking lambs out of ditches, bogs and snowdrifts, so I imagined the settings in my own area. The stolen-horse traders lurked at Ashburton Cattle Market, where my parents bought poultry at auction and I begged them (unsuccessfully) to buy me one of the £10 drift foals, males rounded up on the moor and destined for French charcuterie.

Well-written middle-grade series made me a reader, and perhaps a writer too. My YA novels follow their narrative arc, in which a hero leaves home for an adventure involving an existential rescue that requires passion, bravery and a sense of justice. Alongside my mother’s involvement in CND and Greenpeace, reading gave me a belief in young people’s capacity to stand up to the forces of greed and destruction. That belief runs through all my novels.

Currently, 14% of UK schools do not have a library. While an Act of Parliament ensures that every prison has a library, there are no such protections for children, although the government has recently pledged a library in every primary school by 2029 through Libraries for Primaries, a National Literacy Trust-led initiative, with Penguin Random House and independent publishers, to donate five hundred books to each of the nearly two thousand primary schools currently without a library. With the average primary comprising almost 300 pupils - and many are much larger - this equates to a book and a half per child. In the light of CILIP’s recommendation for 10-13 quality library books per pupil, with a minimum of 1,300 for smaller schools, the promise of five hundred books appears more like a ‘collection’ than a ‘library’.

Secondary schools do not qualify for this scheme and despite high profile campaigns by Michael Morpurgo and Michael Rosen, Devon County Council voted unanimously to axe its mobile library service in 2024, leaving many rural young people without access to books. This runs roughshod over the statutory duty under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to provide a "comprehensive and efficient library service for all" and is a catastrophe for remote rural communities.

On the Edge is set in just such a place, a popular tourist destination on the South Devon coast where traditional work in fishing and farming is under threat from distant decision-makers, seasonal work is low paid, and cuts to transport and healthcare limit quality of life. Wealthy outsiders have bought up much of the local housing stock for second homes, short-term lets and investment portfolios, leaving young people with no choice but to leave the area they love in search of work and accommodation elsewhere.

It is under these circumstances that Rhys, the hero of On the Edge, is drawn into a radical protest group inspired by Meibion Glyndwr, the 1980s Welsh second-home arson movement - with tragic consequences. This is YA/Crossover fiction, so the thieves stealing what is his - an education, a job, a home - are never brought to justice. Like the Dartmoor ponies in Ashburton Cattle Market, Rhys is wild but not free, and will soon be driven from his beautiful home in search of work and housing. Despite this, he finds solace in the beauty of the natural world - the stunning beaches and cliffs of the South Hams - and draws strength from community bonds, his loving family and the thrill of his favourite sport, surfing.

Mobile libraries may never again pull up in remote areas like the setting of On the Edge, but perhaps, inspired by the middle-grade stories of rescue and escape in their primary school libraries, 16-year-old YA readers will sneak out into the night, or at least before the polls close at 10pm, and return Rhys to his rightful home.

On the Edge is published by Old Barn Books and is available now from all good bookshops.