Guest blog - Barbarians at the gates of Friern by Joanna Fryer

By Joanna Fryer,

Before the Olympic torch bearer reached Friern Barnet Library Green we arrived to set up the Friern Barnet People's Library and found twelve council workers waiting for us in anticipation of the "trouble" the Council told them to expect from us. We told them that only a barbarian from the Council would think that we in Friern Barnet would disrupt the Olympic torch. We have always been scrupulously polite in our dealings with the Council -- far more polite than the Cabinet has ever been with us --mocking us, Brain Coleman calling us names, Robert Rams making flippant answers to our questions and telling untruths, and Richard Cornelius pretending that he was trying to help us when he was doing the very opposite. We did not disrupt the torch race. We passed out books to amuse the children waiting for the torch to come by and mingled among the crowd chatting, and, Oh yes, telling them all about what the barbarians in the Council did to us but in a completely civilised way.
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Joanna Fryer is the secretary of the Save Friern Barnet Library Group and a Banet resident. Guest blogs are alway welcome at the Barnet Eye. Please note that this blog is the private view of Joanna Fryer and is not a statement issued byu the Save FBL group.