Penguin Books Revisited

If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????? George Orwell

Orwell is right, of course, but before you can write well you have to read well. On Platform 1 of Exeter St David’s railway station there is a memorial plaque that commemorates the founder of Penguin Books, Sir Allen Lane.

In 1934, travelling from Exeter to London, Sir Allen Lane found himself waiting on a railway platform with nothing to read. This experience, together with Sir Allen’s desire to make quality literature affordable and accessible to all, led him to create the Penguin sixpenny paperback, and marked the beginning of Penguin Books and its lasting legacy.

The sixpenny paperback was affordable enough to be sold at railway stations, corner shops and even in vending machines across the country, ensuring that no one, ever again, would go without a book of quality to read on their journey. Those first Penguin paperbacks included writing by Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie. Sir Allen went on to found Penguin Books in 1935 and this act did more to encourage reading than any other for a generation.?With a nod to Sir Allen and those early vending machines delivering Penguin paperbacks, The Mermaid, the new sixth form centre at Epsom College, has a machine that dispenses short stories for students to read in 5 or 10 minutes.

A hundred years on, the need to develop a reading habit and to think for oneself is just as pressing and the rewards equally transformative. George Orwell knew that words are guardians of independent thought, he understood that words are sacred, and they deserve our respect.

At the very least, words can help to shorten the train journey from Exeter to London.

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