"What really makes bookselling not a job but a vocation and a calling, is the joy of witnessing those moments of serendipitous discovery when customers fall in love with books right before your eyes ..."
The older one becomes, the quicker time passes. I’m sure there’s a good literary quote about this but I don’t have one coming to mind. It seems unbelievable that it’s already more than six years since I moved the bookshop from Banbury to Winchcombe. With an energy I didn’t know I had, and with my incredibly supportive family mucking in with all the least glamorous jobs, together we renovated a run-down but majestic 18th -century building – former restaurant, with dilapidated bed-sit type rooms above – into the beautiful bookshop space I have now, with the added bonus of a two bed book and nature-themed short term holiday let above, our much-loved Book Nook (ideal for writing retreats, wink wink). We have finally found our forever home.
Winchcombe is the reason why we moved the bookshop. It’s an unspoilt small town in the northwest of the Cotswolds. It’s charming; full of character and history, yet undiscovered enough to have a friendly, active local community, which is what we fell in love with. For visitors there’s a wealth of delights on the doorstep – all within a few miles you can find majestic Sudeley Castle, burial place of Henry VIII’s last wife, Hailes Abbey, Belas Knapp neolithic burial mound, the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway, with a train stop at Winchcombe one mile from the town centre, Cleeve Hill which is the second highest hill of the Cotswolds, outstanding for walks and views, our historic St. Peter’s Church, complete with super grotesques, one of which is known as the “Mad Hatter”. If all that isn’t enough, Winchcombe is lauded as “The Walking Capital of the Cotswolds” due to the array of foothpaths crossing the town and the beautiful countryside around.
Today I sit in this inviting, tranquil space – with ancient beams and honey-coloured flagstone floor which has seen foot traffic for more than 250 years and numerous trades come and go from this building. It’s a Farmers Market Saturday (which I try to open for but I can’t always make it in on Saturdays) so there’s hustle and bustle outside. I get a few passing friendly waves from locals who haven’t time to call in today and then the doorbell jingles and my first visitors of the day arrive. They are on holiday and immediately exclaim about how beautiful the shop is and how it’s bigger on the inside. Aside: I hear this comment so often maybe I should re-name the shop Tardis Books!
Thus starts a sunny Cotswolds shop day with the perfect mix of local customers and tourists from around the globe – my favourite kind of day. I especially enjoy occasionally trying out a word or two of German which I have been trying to learn now for a few years. My least favourite bookshop days are rainy days. In Banbury I enjoyed a bookshop rainy day as I didn’t have display tables and the shop was much bigger. Nowadays I have books out on display and they’re a prime target to be dripped on (!!) so I spend rainy days in a state of anxious high alert as books and water are not a happy mix.
The bookshop has gone through many changes over its 20 years, starting out as second hand books and new stationery (hence the name) and has now settled into a focus on antiquarian and illustrated books, themed vintage books from Penguin and Puffin paperbacks, to old Everyman editions, Ladybird and Observer’s books, collectable children’s books from times gone by – which I love hearing people reminisce about as they wander – plus other themed displays as they come my way. I also keep a large selection of more modern second hand paperback literature, crime fiction and children’s novels, a well-stocked local history section, plus a small array of hand-picked new books.
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| Vintage children's books |
We have an extra space which we have been slowly renovating for the past few years and this will be opened later this year as a dedicated room for history, military history and related subjects like politics. I’m excited to get this space open soon as I have some outstanding stock sitting in storage, waiting to come and fill the shelves. When you have your own bookshop it can be enormous fun to let your personality spill out onto the shop floor from time to time!! ... Since re-locating, the bookshop has evolved into stocking Willie’s Cacao dark chocolate. Willie is in the process of moving his artisan chocolate factory to nearby Herefordshire so there will be a local connection but his dark chocolates also happen to be my favourite vegan-friendly range and I like having a supply close at hand!
Vintage teddy bears have also descended on the shop and have been a huge hit with customers of all ages. I adore seeking them out, giving them a “Teddy Bear Spa Day” and then finding them new forever homes. Prints, original art, wood engravings, antique etchings, maps and other printed ephemera have also found a space in the shop and I’m currently thrilled to have a number of original paintings made for Ladybird Books by the artist Roger Hall. Outreach events, like book fairs, have had to take a step back while we navigate our way around personal challenges that came our way with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic; so too my website stock. But we are instead thoroughly enjoying running our Book Nook apartment and meeting all our lovely bookish guests from all walks of life.
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| Vintage Ladybirds |
We don’t yet live in Winchcombe but when we move to the town I’m looking forward to being able to offer longer opening hours, including evening openings, so more book lovers can discover the shop. Writing this piece has been an interesting reflection for me on 20 years as a bookseller and all that that encompasses – curator, book guardian, researcher, matchmaker, reviewer, rescuer, re-homer, marketer, accountant, building renovator, designer, and hostess – but above all, what has really makes bookselling be not a job but a vocation and a calling, is the joy of witnessing those moments of serendipitous discovery when customers fall in love with books right before your eyes. This is what I hope to be doing for at least another 20 years to come.
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