The Diary of a Bookseller
Page 20
I spotted Mr Deacon chatting to Menzies Campbell outside an event as I was walking from the shop to the festival office to see Eliot about an author who needed a projector for his talk. I have been to a few talks that Mr Deacon has also attended. If he ever asks a question – and he usually does – it is always met by the speaker to whom it is directed with the response ‘That is a very interesting question.’
Nicky found a book by Ian Hay in which the main character is called Nicky. Rather than work, she spent most of the day reading it and chuckling. Apparently there is another character in it called Stiffy, who she has decided is me, and she is editing it to suit her own narrative.
The Writers’ Retreat was busy all day: Kate Adie, Menzies Campbell, Clare Short, Kirsty Wark and Jonathan Miller, among others. For a brief moment they were all chatting in the shop. It was like a literary salon.
It was, unsurprisingly, a late night here, with Eliot bringing a crowd of writers back. At one point Stuart Kelly had poured himself a glass of wine which Eliot snatched from his hand and began to drink, leaving Stuart looking perplexed. Later, to compound the offence, Stuart was tidying up the Retreat (at about 2 a.m.) when he discovered a pair of shoes under a table, so he moved them and put them in the hall. When Eliot discovered that they were his, he asked Stuart to go and get them for him. At this point Stuart was carrying a large pile of newspapers, which he dropped on Eliot’s feet, saying, ‘Extra, extra, read all about it. Festival director unable to fetch his own shoes.’
Till total £447.98
44 customers
MONDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Nicky, Bethan and Flo were all in today. Flo is a student who worked in the shop last summer, and is admirably disrespectful to customers, but considerably more so to me. It would have been handier to have them all in over the weekend, and I struggled to find things for them all to do.
The Writers’ Retreat was fairly quiet, except when Clare Balding was in. I spent most of the day filling the log basket and taking bin bags full of lobster carcasses and paper plates and bottles out of the kitchen and down to the bins.
Nicky brought me in some homeopathic stress relief pills and made me take two, washed down with a pint of her vile home brew.
Till total £467.12
51 customers
TUESDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER
Online orders: 2
Books found: 2
Bethan and Flo in, though Bethan missed the bus and didn’t appear until 10 a.m. Flo failed to find one of the orders this morning, Tokyo Lucky Hole, in the erotica section, and another in the poetry section. I found both in about a minute and asked her to package them. When I returned about ten minutes later, she was engrossed in the fairly graphically erotic Tokyo Lucky Hole.
In the evening Allison, Anna, Lee Randall and I formed a team for Stuart Kelly’s Literary Pub Quiz. We came third, with 25 out of 35. Anupa came back to the house afterwards for a few drinks.
Till total £291.49
27 customers
OCTOBER
First edition snobs were much commoner than lovers of literature, but oriental students haggling over cheap textbooks were commoner still, and vague-minded women looking for birthday presents for their nephews were commonest of all.
George Orwell, ‘Bookshop Memories’
First edition snobs are, sadly, a dying breed, although many people who bring books into the shop in the hope of selling them will point to the verso of the title page, where the edition is displayed, and expectantly await an offer of untold wealth. Now, I rarely check the edition unless it is a pre-1960 Ian Fleming, or a well-known author’s first title or something similar. In non-fiction – with a few exceptions – it barely makes any difference what edition a book is, yet people still cling to the notion that first editions are somehow imbued with a magical and financial value. Textbooks are something we don’t even bother with in the shop these days. Every year they appear to be very slightly revised and republished. Students (oriental in Orwell’s case, of every kind in mine) are expected to be armed with the latest edition, rendering all previous editions essentially worthless. Commonest of all these days are not ‘vague-minded women’ but men trying to track down a particular title. Their disappointment at being told that we don’t happen to have a copy in stock is matched only by their sense of smug satisfaction on hearing that information. Should the quest for their holy grail ever be completed, many of them would have no further purpose in life. By far the favourite is the search for an odd volume to make up a complete set of something. It has to be the same edition, same binding, same colour. Most booksellers don’t stock odd volumes unless it is a particularly interesting title, or a volume with fine illustrations, so the benighted crusader searching for his missing third volume of Gordon’s The Works of Tacitus (fourth edition, Rivington, London, 1770, tree-calf, five raised bands, purple title panel) can be confident that his quest will continue until he can no longer remember what he was looking for.
WEDNESDAY, 1 OCTOBER
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Nicky and Flo both in today.
Today was my forty-fourth birthday, so at lunchtime I went to Rigg Bay for a swim in the sea with Anna to mark the occasion in the same way that I have done for the past thirteen years.
The Writers’ Retreat was unusually busy by lunchtime for a weekday. Among the retreating writers were the journalist Allan Little and Richard Demarco, who must be in his eighties now. Richard was instrumental in setting up the Edinburgh Festival, and Allan, who grew up in the west of Galloway, was one of the BBC’s finest journalists. At its busiest time there must have been thirty people in the room, at which point Maria, who was bringing in a tray of food, spotted something on the floor that looked suspiciously faecal. She quietly gestured to Laurie, who came over, and they hatched a plan for her to find a cloth and remove it before anyone else saw it. Maria discreetly stood over it to ensure that nobody trod in it. As she was guarding it, Allison marched into the room, saw it, pointed at it and said, ‘Oh look, a shit!’ before Laurie had the chance to remove it.
The source of the shit became the subject of discussion for the rest of the day, Nicky leading the investigation with forensic scrutiny, which included rifling through the bin to retrieve it so that she could measure it. She became increasingly convinced that an elderly visitor had done it without noticing, and that it had slipped down their trouser leg. Other theories included the suggestion that it was actually icing from my birthday cake, which Anna had made. When Stuart suggested that the turd may have been Captain’s, Nicky’s instant and vituperative response was, ‘Nae chance, the bore’s wrong’.
The interview recorded earlier in the month with Border TV was broadcast on their magazine programme Border Life. Mercifully, I missed it.
Till total £395.93
45 customers
THURSDAY, 2 OCTOBER
Online orders: 2
Books found: 2
Flo and Nicky in.
I spent most of the day editing a promotional video about Wigtown that I’ve been putting together purely because of the diabolical lack of attention that Visit Scotland pays to this corner of the country. For decades it has been referred to as ‘Scotland’s Forgotten Corner’, and many visitors appreciate that element of it, but it ill-becomes our publicly funded tourist agency to forget it. On the Visit Scotland web site, under the blurb about Wigtown, there is a photograph of the golf course at Glenluce, twelve miles away. It really can’t be that difficult to find a picture of Wigtown. I have even emailed them one of my own, but they have yet to substitute it and probably never will.
Lunched with two Italian women – journalists who were over because they had read Anna’s book and wanted to visit Wigtown. I am quite convinced that Rockets has done far more for tourism in Wigtown than Visit Scotland ever will.
Nicky and I did a slot on Wigtown Radio between 3 and 4 p.m. Unfortunately so
meone had muted the music on the computer, so Nicky had to keep talking until I worked out how to fix it, which took about half an hour. She dried up a few times and was clearly not enjoying it, but she did a decent job of presenting. As soon as her shift was over, she left the cell and demanded whisky.
The comedian Robin Ince arrived at about 6 p.m. He wanted to browse in the shop, so I put all the lights back on and left him to it. He bought a pile of books. Nicky and I went to his event in the County Buildings at 7.30 p.m.
I posted the video of Wigtown that I had been editing on Facebook.
Till total £319.05
40 customers
FRIDAY, 3 OCTOBER
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Flo and Nicky in.
A customer asked Nicky if we had any rare John Buchan titles in stock. She found a copy of The Scholar Gypsies, which was £100, and told her that she could have it for £80 since she was doing an event. She turned out to be his granddaughter, Ursula Buchan.
In the afternoon I picked up the Italian journalists and we drove to Cruggleton church, a Norman church in the middle of a field, with no glass in the windows or electricity.
The event in Cruggleton consisted of Tom Pow reading poetry, accompanied by Wendy Stewart on harp and Alex McQuiston on cello. Entirely candlelit, it was an extraordinarily beautiful event. On the journey home in the van I was emptying my pocket to show one of the journalists the programme (she wanted the performers’ names for her blog) and produced from it a teabag in a pouch that I had taken from the Writers’ Retreat. Unfortunately it looked exactly like a condom. Both of the Italians saw it and there was an awkward silence while I pathetically attempted to demonstrate that it was actually just a teabag as they edged slowly away.
Allison’s event – a play about Borges – was on at 6 p.m. in the old warehouse at the back of the shop. Anna had been directing her rehearsals here all week. We had to change the access from the garden to via the road because the lighting on the path in the garden had fused, so I led people there in small groups in the driving rain. In no time I was completely soaked. The event went well, although Anna did not look particularly pleased.
Heavy rain continued into the night. Before long the gutter was blocked and water was pouring into the Writers’ Retreat, so Laurie, Nicky, Anna, Stuart and I spent some time frantically racing about with buckets and saucepans. Despite our efforts to limit the damage, the water came down through the floor of the Retreat and into the shop.
Till total £239.05
38 customers
SATURDAY, 4 OCTOBER
Online orders: 4
Books found: 2
Flo, Bethan and Nicky in.
Nicky opened the shop to find water still flooding into the building from the blocked gutter. We tried to clear the blockage with a broom handle from the bedroom window, but it wasn’t long enough, so I went down to the cellar and found a drain rod. Half hanging out of the third-floor window in the torrential rain, with Laurie holding my ankles, I eventually managed to clear it. It stopped dripping into the Retreat at 10 a.m., just as we opened.
Sally Magnusson and Margaret Drabble were in the Writers’ Retreat when I appeared, soaked, to check that everything was ready. Lucy (Maria’s helper) cornered Sally to ask her about journalism, which she very obligingly and enthusiastically discussed for a few minutes. Damian Barr bought some books from me. I had no idea who he was at the time.
At the start of the day I set up the GoPro camera behind the counter to make speeded-up video of life in the shop, just as Dylan Moran came in. I now have video of him buying a book from the shop. Flo served him. She was annoyingly unflapped about it.
Flo overheard a woman ask a man, as they walked through the shop, ‘So they didn’t have the book you’re looking for?’ To which he replied, shaking his head, ‘Aye, they did, but just the one copy.’
Ceilidh in the big marquee in the square in the evening. It was packed. Lots of girls dancing with girls and boys with boys, as well as the more traditional arrangements. In the early days of the festival nothing was particularly well attended, but the ceilidh was undoubtedly among the worst. For the first few years there were just a handful of us, and to avoid embarrassment we would all end up joining in every single dance. Now it is different. The event has to be ticketed and always sells out. It has become enormously popular. At one point I was standing next to Damian Barr, who was dancing with another man. I drunkenly asked him which of them was being the woman, then later discovered that he is gay. If he was offended, he hid it extremely well. Faux pas of the festival so far. Went to the house to try to convince Nicky (who had decided not to attend) to change her mind and come along. Bumped into Jen Campbell and her parents outside the shop, so they came in for a drink and a chat.
We all stayed up late: Colin, Peggy, Stuart, Nicky and Natalie Haynes, who was on the Booker panel of judges with Stuart. Peggy runs the Dundee Literary Festival and could easily have emerged from the same clutch of eggs as Stuart Kelly. Colin, her partner – who generally answers to the name of ‘Beard’ – is running the social media side of the festival. They are both Wigtown Festival institutions, and have helped carve the identity of the event as much as Eliot, Stuart, Twigger and Finn.
The shop was heaving all day: the last gasp before the long winter of penury.
Till total £1,274.03
87 customers
SUNDAY, 5 OCTOBER
Online orders: 6
Books found: 4
Nicky and Flo in. I bumped into Nicky in the kitchen at about 8.30 a.m. She told me, ‘You smell as good as a bacon roll.’
As always on the final day of the festival, there’s a sense of end-of-holiday blues, as the party begins to wind down. Despite it being the last day, there was the usual chaos going on in the Writers’ Retreat, with the staff and Maria being magnificently serene.
Eliot roped Anna into chairing Jen Campbell’s event, a talk about her new book, The Bookshop Book. It went extremely well, apart from me asking a particularly stupid question. Both Anna and Jen were erudite and entertaining.
As with every year, on the last day of the festival, we turned the Writers’ Retreat into a cinema. This year we set up the projector and watched Dr Who with Stuart, Beth and Cheyney.
Till total £568.75
32 customers
MONDAY, 6 OCTOBER
Online orders: 5
Books found: 4
Nicky and Flo in. We spent the day shifting furniture and trying to get the place back to normal. Maria came in at lunchtime to sort out her stuff in the kitchen. Anna and I drove to the dump to get rid of cardboard boxes and empty wine bottles.
Nicky made herself cheese on toast for lunch and ate it in the middle of the shop, surrounded by customers.
This morning a busybody of an old man for whom I have always had an intense dislike came into the shop to try to persuade me to stock the self-published novel he has written. I am frequently presented with this sort of thing, and I take it on sale or return for purely diplomatic reasons. Without exception, one year later, I end up returning every single copy.
The big marquee came down today, leaving a pale yellow patch of grass beneath where it had stood, a reminder throughout the long winter of what had been here until it starts to green up again as the soil temperature warms up in March.
Anna and I went for supper at The Ploughman with the volunteers.
Till total £123.97
14 customers
TUESDAY, 7 OCTOBER
Online orders: 5
Books found: 3
Nicky was in today.
The shop received an anonymous postcard this morning, so I posted it on Facebook. Hopefully it will trigger more. It was a picture of a bronze lion, and on the back it just read: ‘a large portion of the Oxford English Dictionary was written by a murderer from a mental institution’.
After lunch I dismantled the framework I had put up for Allison’s event in the old warehouse.
Everyone had a slight case of post-festival come-down today.
We spent most of the day continuing the clear-up operation. After the shop was shut I cooked for the interns and we watched Wings of Desire on the projector in the Writers’ Retreat.
The timing of the festival was originally intended to prolong the tourist season for shops in the town and it has succeeded to such an extent that the infrastructure is starting to creak with Hotels and B&Bs nearing the capacity they experience at the summer peak. The extent to which it brings people and money to the town more than justifies the costs of putting it on.
I rarely have the luxury of attending any events, and spend my time driving to the dump and the recycling skips with bin bags and bottles from the Writers’ Retreat; but when I am in the shop, I have the opportunity to meet writers and other famous (or not) visitors in the Retreat, where they tend to be far more relaxed than at their events, so it is an extraordinary privilege to have the chance to talk to them in a more natural environment.
Eliot is excellent at making a point of introducing me to people although if he’s not around, occasionally – seeing me help clearing up plates, or filling up the log basket – they will assume that I am hired help, and a few behave disparagingly.
One year, as I was putting logs on the fire, a well-known newspaper columnist who was sitting at the table in the Retreat drinking free wine and eating free lobster, clicked his fingers and shouted ‘sugar’ at me, while pointing at an empty sugar bowl on the table.
Those are the visitors whom I dislike second-most. Worse than them, though, are those who – once they find out that it is my house – suddenly start to treat me differently from the girls helping Maria in the kitchen or the Retreat, or Nicky and Flo, or Bethan in the shop. I suppose the charge could be fairly levelled at me that I don’t make a great deal of effort to find out about my customers, but I am never rude to waiters, waitresses, cleaners or shop staff and hope that I have never treated anyone as a second-class citizen, and instead merely reflect rudeness back at people who are rude to me. I can afford to be rude back to customers – it’s my shop, nobody is going to fire me – but most people who work in shops are not in this position, and to exploit that by not showing them the slightest courtesy is something that offends me greatly. And while I do make observations about the appearance of some of my customers, they are just observations – not judgements. In most cases.