BARBARA Oakes loved her library so much that she kept its giant stone doorstep when it was demolished.

Now her dedication to High Street Library, Daubhill, has won her an MBE for services to local government.

Mrs Oakes has spent her entire working life — 43 years — at the library, in which time she has witnessed its demolition and rebuilding, and its transformation from a silent, dusty archive to a bustling community resource.

When the old building was knocked down in 2006, Mrs Oakes asked if she could keep one of the big stone steps.

She had to enlist the help of workmen with a small crane and a truck to move the four-foot block, before rolling it on logs into her garden.

It now forms the centrepiece to her patio, and her whole garden is built around it. She said: “I think so much of the place. I loved that place deeply, and when it was going it felt like such a big event to me.

“I’d spent so much of my life in it that I wanted to retain some part of it.

“I was devastated when the building went, but I have had a real learning curve with it. I realised that the library is nothing to do with the building — it’s the people.

“As long as you have got all those same people coming in then it’s the same library.”

Mrs Oakes went to St Mark’s Primary School in Daubhill, before going on to Hayward Grammar School, now the Essa Academy.

She did a secretarial course at Manchester Road Technical College (now Bolton Community College) and went straight to work in the library service when she finished, aged 18, in 1967.

“I always knew that it was what I wanted to do,” she said, although her current role as library manager is very different to the work she did when she started as an assistant at Bolton Central Library.

She said: “The atmosphere at a library has changed so much. It used to be all “shhhh” and getting told off, but it’s not any more, and that can only be for the best.”

Mrs Oakes jokingly describes herself as “quite boring, really” because she has had the same job, the same house and the same husband for more than 40 years.

When she is not in the library, Mrs Oakes loves walking with her husband, Ken Oakes, and she spends a lot of time in her caravan in Anglesey.

She used to run a youth club at Chew Moor Methodist Church, and was also a Sunday school teacher from 1975 to 1990.

She has two sons and four grandchildren.

Like many youngsters of her era, Mrs Oakes became interested in books and libraries because of Enid Blyton, having read the Famous Five and Secret Seven books.

She said: “I used to come to the library as a child. I was an absolutely avid reader from an early age.

“My dad said 'for goodness sake, stop reading, go out and get some fresh air', but I didn't want to. I just wanted to read.

“Say what you want about Enid Blyton — you have got to give her credit for getting so many children interested in reading.”

Mrs Oakes has no plans to leave after 43 years at the library.

She said: "It must be one of the nicest libraries to work in because of the people that come in here and live round here. It's a real community.

"I have also been fortunate with the wonderful staff, and I have had a wonderful relationship with everyone throughout." l Tomorrow: Education all the way for college stalwart Lauran Chatburn.