When newsvendors plied their trade on street corners you could hear their cries of “Read all about it!” half a mile away.

They were more concerned with selling their entire stock of ‘papers than being clearly understood and years of shouting had loosened their dentures. This led to their cry sounding more like “Rheeeda-awla-bhoww-tit!”

In Swansea, one celebrated vendor sounded as is she was shouting ‘Beans on Toast’ as she constantly screamed out ‘Evening Post’.

The truth is that customers would stop and buy a ‘paper so they could read all about the particular ‘It’ that was splashed across the front page.

I don’t see newsvendors about these days, probably because in many cities around the U.K. (I’m allowed out of Wales occasionally for good behaviour) free newspapers are available on ‘buses and railway stations at peak times.

‘”Read all about it!” has been replaced by someone waving a free newspaper under your nose as you hurry home at the end of the day.

This is quite a stretch, but perhaps because people are no longer asked to ‘read all about it’ on a daily basis, 12 million UK citizens have either read no books or less than one book for pleasure in the last six months – according to  a recent survey.

As an avid reader, I get through at least one avid a week. I find that incredible.

I can’t imagine what life would be without books.

I always take a book with me on holiday and the time I spend hanging around airport lounges and travelling on ‘planes just flies by.

Books make train journeys seem shorter. If you stand on one, you’ll seem taller.

Dinner parties with boring guests finish much quicker if you bury your head in a who-dun-it during the main course.

If you can’t sleep, select a book from the pile on the bedside table and become engrossed in an exotic world full of jaw-droppingly unbelievable stories. Especially if you like reading politician’s memoirs.

I’ve loved books since I was knee high to a library ticket. Over the years, certain books have become old friends I can turn to in times of stress.

I immerse myself in the welcoming warm waters of their words. Classics and best-sellers; battered old paperback thrillers; travel books; biographies; reference books; humorous novels; Jackie annual 1976…just kidding!

It’s the 1975 edition.

Apparently there are British households where the only ‘book’ children have access to is the Argos catalogue. Put bluntly, those children have little chance of getting on in life.

If you read stories to your children and grandchildren, they’ll learn to read much faster than a child who isn’t read to. There’s also every chance they’ll do better academically –  and if they develop a love for books, that’s a bonus.

Books give you an insight into other people’s lives – real and fictional – and their thoughts and opinions. They may wildly differ from yours, but that doesn’t make them any less valid.

Because, as a wise man once said…

”If the only opinion you ever take notice of is your own…you’re a bit of a      twonk!”