Overdue library book is finally returned 84 years later and £12 fine paid in full

A loaf of bread cost 3p and we were on the brink of war when a book titled Red Deer was borrowed from a library.

Captain William Harrison was due to return the tome by English nature writer Richard Jefferies by October 11, 1938.

But it has only just been returned to Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library in Earlsdon, Coventry – 84 years overdue.

Captain Harrison died in 1957, but his grandson Paddy Riordan recently found the book among his grandfather’s belongings and took it back, paying the 1d a week fine, which he reckoned worked out at £18.27 in today’s money.

A staff member at the library posted on social media : “How wonderful that the book has finally made its way home!”

Details of the fine faced for the slightly overdue book (Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library/TNG)

Paddy Riordan returning his grandfather’s overdue library book, 84 years late (Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library/TNG)

The world record for the most overdue library book is held by “Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum Septentrionalium, Vicinorumque Populorum Diversi”.

It was returned to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1956 – 288 years late.