Here's some of my strange moments:
1. The first time I went to the Harry Price library I was accompanied by another staff member to show me around. Can't remember which book we were looking for but the first one I picked up was one by Harry Lorayne. My name is Lorraine. I told my colleague and she hurriedly found the book we went for and said we should get out! I also was in there once and books dropped on the floor. Everyone mentioned the chair in there that moved but I never saw that happen - Mr Wesencraft said it was only psychic forces and nothing to fear.
[the old HPL - Photograph by Tom Ruffles]
2. As I remember - the art books were held on the 7th floor. I went up to 'fetch' (as it was termed) one and a very pleasant man in a grey suit with tidy white hair and beard came along the row I was in and said to me 'I am just going to cross your path'. I got my books and came back down in the lift. I went there later but he had gone. A few days later I was telling my colleagues about the nice man and I asked our boss who had been given a stack pass that day. It turned out that none were issued.
I remember the lift having problems - nobody liked going in that alone."
Mr Alan Wesencraft (1912-2007), or 'Wesey', was Honorary Curator of the Harry Price Library at Senate House. He was known to innumerable researchers as a helpful, kind and extremely knowledgeable man, who would guide people ably around the collection and its contents. He was introduced to later library staff as "the only man now working in the Library who met and worked with Harry Price".
