“Can I ask you?” Of course, “We have a two-year old at home and apart from Paddington Bear what else could I bring her?” Ah, now I was on home, Granny ground and launched into the thrills of “Ant and Bee,” showing her the books on her phone. And even as I explained: “They are different, but friends, you see.” I wondered if that idea would sit comfortably with her - different but friends.

Some of the doctors followed in this film are still alive and working. Some are not. Almost all have been imprisoned, tortured and lost family members.

When asked, the honor guards gathers to perform Nightingale Tribute services for nurses. Like in the military, it consists of the Final Call to Duty. The Nightingale Lamp is lit in the nurse's honor and when a triangle is rung the nurse’s name is called out three times as a request to report to duty. With the last silence, after her name is called, the nurse is announced as retired and the lamp's flame is extinguished. She is relieved from Duty.

This is a quiet room, saved now for big occasions with family or friends but in this solitary time I take it for my own. The stillness calls me and I welcome it putting my pen to the page bringing immediate and long-past memories together, taking time to talk to the page.

Libraries carry the past forward to the present and into the future. The knowledge and truth stored safely from the Library of Alexandria through to the likes of Wikipedia and The Internet Archive, and all libraries, are the creations of our minds and those looking to control the narratives of history are oft times fearful. It is not that long ago that the burning of books took over from the burning of witches. The concept of an open and acsessable library is an ancient democratic idea, and for the destruction of democracy access to knowledge and art must be curtailed.

As the lights came up the audience of some film makers, film buffs. and children settling in for the Q and A. A young girl who had participated in the fun children’s hour hosted before the film asked Walter “Is Oz real?” and he answered, “Well that is the question isn’t it?”

But supper has to be quick, we are on location with a gig after all and we walk our way from the restaurant to Horatio's Bar and ‘The Space’ on Brighton Palace Pier. Dusk has arrived and day trippers were leaving the pier as film buffs are arriving, bustling in, ordering a drink or two and settling into the chairs arched around The Space. It is late by the time the last fans leave and we walk back along the pier, with the waves lapping underneath drowning out the sound of the cars heading back to ‘Hove Actually’.

It’s the writers, it’s the publishers, and it’s the bookstore owners that come together to give us the books we read. Over the years publishers and publishing, both in big and small houses, has grown and changed how a book gets into our hands and our hearts. It is not often that one gets to sit down with a working  publisher who is willing to talk about the ups and downs of the publishing business today.

Even here in this quiet corner of London we feel it, the head-shaking from our neighbors, the decisions not to visit America - the US president is on every newscast in this country and around most of the world and that is possibly a Very Important Thing for him.

Even in the worst of times, which for so many people in the world this is, the spring sunshine is bringing warmth and a moment of peace within the despair of their lives.