Ian Handford: Our town's most beloved librarian

In retaining his role as the South Devon Librarian for more than sixteen years John (sometimes called Jack) was not involved with the Golden Jubilee event at Torquay Library in 1957 although by 1962 he as Borough Librarian was in office to oversee the creation of a new build library in Courtland Road Paignton replacing the former library in Totnes Road.

This new single storey library was constructed on ground adjacent to Victoria Park, near the town centre and Hyde Road.  It would be twenty years before the County Borough of Torquay then brought the Bays four libraries together in the Urban District Council of Paignton, Brixham Parish and the Parish Council of Churston, when merged into a single authority as the Torbay Borough Council - library service.

Now Mr Pike having been promoted as the Borough’s Chief Librarian had been fortunate to oversee a second purpose built library within the bay, being Churston re-established in 1973 adjacent to the Brixham Road in the heart of Churston. Situated on land opposite the retail shops of Churston the press saw fit to award the Library Service a new title “United Torquay Library Service”.  A little later another Local Government Review came in 1974 resulting in all four libraries then coming under the authority of Devon County Council (DCC) at Exeter.. 

It would now be six years before Mr Pike retired in 1980 and a new librarian authority being based in Exeter took the opportunity to break the “historic chain of”  appointing all new senior staff internally since 1907. Interviews at Exeter now appointed Mr Peter Bottrill from the Surrey Region who successfully claimed the title of Chief Librarian for Torbay. Meanwhile John had retired and soon chose to use his vast knowledge of the history of Devon and it’s many famous characters to accept invitations to undertake talks to local business groups or public events.

He had also commenced writing books about local history one of his first was using his earlier research concerned John Lee who by now was known to have emigrated and had died in America. A profuse writer of books like his “Iron Horse of the Sea” and even “Famous and Infamous People” were being published by 1987 and then came “Place and People” available at libraries and on sale by 1992.

Mr Pike was lucky enough to witness his old library become the first in the South West to get awarded a “Charter Mark of Excellence” for customer service. By then he was even issuing more publications at the library entitled “A Torbay Century in 2003”. That was the year Mr Bottrill launched his local-history “website”, which heralded a new era for all libraries. With it’s title “Caught in the Web - bytes of Torbay’s Past” this new website today is still available on www.torbytes.com.  

Survived by his wife Ruth and a son and daughter Mr John Richard Pike died at the age of 82 on May 6th 2004 in Torquay. Now a “John Pike Local History Room” was created as a memorial to this long-serving public servant, who had overseen the first mobile library launched, which later was replaced in the new electronic era of 2006.

A year later when Chairman of Torbay Civic Society I at the request of Peter, eventually arranged that the famous author Dick Frances while on his annual holiday in Paignton, come to Torquay library to front a ceremony celebrating it’s 1907-2007 Anniversary as guest of honour. This followed an extensive six week closure and updating of the library which one refurbished had new computers and television screens which offered customers and library members extra specialist services which included computer games for the young. Truly a brand new era of modern- day library services had commenced.