Football legend Ian Wright returned to his old school to cut the ribbon at Turnham Primary School’s library, which has long been supported by The Acorn Group, comprising Acorn, Langford Russell, and John Payne.

With 38 estate agency offices across South East London and North Kent serving as community drop-off points for pre-loved children’s books, The Acord Group  has been committed o helping children gain free access to quality books by supported ABC Book Club since 2018.

ABC Book Club works to transform school spaces, re-donating top-quality pre-loved books and building over 30 bespoke libraries in schools without one. Their latest project was the transformation of Turnham Primary School’s library in Brockley.

Ian Wright – a former Turnham pupil – shared fond memories of the library as a place of sanctuary during his childhood. Encouraging pupils to “read every day, no matter what,”

Kevin Ashton, branch manager, Acorn Brockley, said: “Such a fantastic morning to be a part of the grand opening of the new Turnham Academy library. It was great to see so many people involved to make this happen and for the generous donations of books and input from ABC Book Club.

“The headteacher and staff are truly passionate about their students learning & reading and today was a great example of this. Turnham Academy priorities the children’s reading and their future, and it was truly inspiring knowing that we and so many contributed to this.”

Jo Chandler, head of operations, ABC Book Club, commented: “It was an absolute pleasure building a library at Turnham Academy. It’s an incredible school with a wonderful community supporting it and I know the library we built for the children will be used, loved and appreciated.

“By creating exciting, beautiful spaces for the children to read for pleasure ABC hopes to inspire this generation of children to fall in love with reading one book donation and one library build at a time.”

Frank Harrowell, headteacher, Turnham Academy, added: “Turnham Academy now has a world class library. Our pupils deserve the very best and we have given them that, with the help of ABC Book Club. We could not have done it without them.”