I wasn’t the world’s biggest Dolly Parton fan.

I mean, I liked her, but then I started listening to Smooth Radio’s Smooth Sanctuary at night and realised just how ridiculous her back catalogue actually is. Songs you know, songs you didn’t realise she’d written, songs that became enormous for other artists. Go look at her most-played songs on Spotify, it’s absolutely bonkers.

But since Dolly passed away, that’s not actually the bit I’ve been thinking about.

When my daughter was little, she was part of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which meant a book would arrive every month through the post, addressed directly to her.

Dolly Parton Imagination Library book insert

She absolutely loved that it had her name on it. It was her post, her book, and she knew we’d be reading it together that night.

She knew who Dolly was too. Her face would be there with the book, and I’d play her songs on Alexa, so she started putting the two together. This superstar in America was somehow the lady sending books to our house in Yorkshire every month.

One I really remember was MY BIG SHOUTING DAY! by Rebecca Patterson. She bloody loved that book.

We read it loads, and we used it as an understanding for when those interesting 4-year-old shouting moments start. It was just a lovely, educational little book that opened her eyes a bit more to the world outside her own tiny island.

That’s what was so good about the whole thing.

For us it meant another story to read together that night. For another family it might have meant they didn’t need to worry about having something new to read at bedtime that month.

Month after month, without really thinking about it, Dolly helped families build a proper little library of good books at home.

We read together every night until my daughter was old enough to read to herself, then I just became the bloke nearby listening.

She’s 10 now and massively into books. The Dolly books stopped arriving after we moved, but her love for them certainly didn’t, and we’ve still got loads of those books today that her little brother now reads.

That’s a pretty amazing thing to have played even a small part in.

You often hear people say famous people should stay out of politics, causes and things that don’t concern them.

I’ve never really understood that.

If you’ve got that kind of platform, why wouldn’t you use some of it to do some good?

Dolly started the Imagination Library because her own dad couldn’t read or write. She could have sold millions of records, made an absolute fortune and still been remembered as one of the biggest stars on the planet.

But somewhere thousands of miles away in Yorkshire, a little girl got excited because something came through the letterbox with her name on it.

Her dad opened the book with her, and they read it together that night.

Years later, when Dolly Parton died, that’s one of the things he remembered.

That’s fucking legacy.