It is a strange phenomenon that, when customers visit the shop for the first time, they tend to walk very slowly through it, as though they are expecting someone to tell them they have entered a forbidden zone, and when they decide to stop, it is invariably in a doorway. This, of course, is incredibly frustrating for anyone behind them, and since that person is usually me, I exist in a state of perpetual frustration. Anthropologists insist that it is an instinctive human response on entering a new space to stop and look around for potential danger, although quite what sort of danger might be lurking in a bookshop – other than a frustrated bookseller whose temper has been frayed to the point of violence by the fact that somebody is blocking the doorway – is a mystery.
Two customers asked what had happened to the spirals of books. The book spirals were large columns of books that were piled in a helix and coated with fibreglass resin. They stood on each side of the door into the shop. Last year some children tried to set fire to one of them – unsuccessfully, as the resin eventually cracks and the rain gets in. I have asked Norrie to make a new pair out of concrete in time for the festival in September.
Till total £324.49
20 customers
FRIDAY, 23 MAY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 4
Today was a cold and grey day, not spring-like at all. Atmospheric conditions affect the radio in the shop, which is tuned to BBC Radio 3. If there is damp in the air, it won’t pick up the signal. Today it spent most of the day completely silent, occasionally popping on for a few seconds of Mahler or Shostakovich.
There was another invasion of Lycra-clad septuagenarian cyclists this morning, most of whom bought a book or two, and who were flattering about both the shop and the stock.
After they had left, a customer came to the counter with a book, opened it, pointed at the £40 price label and said, ‘What price is this? Surely not £40.’ I explained that, yes, the book was £40. He dropped it on the counter, from where it bounced and landed on the floor, damaging one of the corners. He looked at it for a couple of seconds, then left without another word.
Most of the books sold today were from the collection of railway books I bought in Glasgow a few weeks ago. I wonder if word has got round the railway community that the collection ended up here. The same thing happened with an ornithology collection that I bought from a collector in Stranraer last year. For weeks there were twitchers in the shop, and it only took a few days for me to recoup my investment.
Till total £281.99
18 customers
SATURDAY, 24 MAY
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Sunny and warm all day. Nicky was in. She has bought a job lot of 1,000 pens on eBay. They are horrible little red things, and she insists on bringing them into the shop, despite the fact that I have a box of far better pens. At the moment there are about a dozen of them in various locations about the place. I keep putting them in the bin, but she retrieves them and redistributes them throughout the shop again.
When I took the mail sacks over to Wilma, I said good morning to William and commented on the warm, sunny weather. He replied, ‘Aye, the rain won’t be far behind it.’
At 11 a.m. there was a talk about Robert Service, the Canadian poet, by Professor Ted Cowan upstairs in the drawing room. As with most of Ted’s talks, it was very well attended. Shortly after it had begun, two very smartly dressed young men in suits, with American accents, came into the shop and asked if we had a copy of The Book of Mormon. On closer inspection I spotted that they had black name badges with ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ printed on them. Nicky was visibly suspicious of them, just as the cat is when a dog enters the shop. When they were just out of earshot, she said, ‘I dinnae like they people. They’ve got some very strange ideas.’
Till total £420.20
34 customers
MONDAY, 26 MAY
Online orders: 6
Books found: 5
At 9.05 a.m. a customer came in trying to sell a box of books on Christian Science. He told me that a load of Christian Scientists had already picked over the collection and taken some of them for free. He was telling me this as he was trying to sell it to me. If a bunch of Christian Scientists didn’t want books on Christian Science for free, then I certainly was not going to pay for them, particularly when they were covered in cat hair.
Late in the day a customer, when asked if he’d like a bag, replied, ‘Desperately.’
Over the past few days about £400 worth of books from the railway book deal in Glasgow have sold. They probably account for half of all the books I have sold in the last week.
Till total £408.88
46 customers
TUESDAY, 27 MAY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
As a customer was looking at the Birlinn reprint of Barnard’s The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom in our new books section, I happened to be passing to put new stock out and I heard the words ‘cheaper on Amazon’ whispered to his companion. He didn’t even have the courtesy to wait until I was out of earshot.
Till total £426.50
21 customers
WEDNESDAY, 28 MAY
Online orders: 7
Books found: 3
After lunch Alastair and Leslie Reid called in to say hello. They live in New York and come over every year to enjoy the Galloway spring months. Alastair was born in nearby Whithorn, the son of the Church of Scotland minister. He is a writer of extraordinary talent, now in his eighties. He is a poet, and also writes for The New Yorker. In recent years he has come to appreciate what he describes as his ‘flinty beginnings’ in Galloway, and every spring he and Leslie return to the place where the warm embrace of childhood friends and the memories of that season, with its familiar smells and sounds, transport him to the time before his wanderlust took him around the world. He introduced the poetry of Neruda and Borges to Europe. Despite (or possibly because of) his roots he has made no secret of his dislike for some elements of Scottish life. In the introduction to his book Whereabouts he writes: ‘The two pieces “Digging up Scotland” and “Hauntings” represent my coming to terms with my flinty beginnings, but while I am still haunted by some Scottish landscapes and weathers, I never feel at home in the wariness of its human climate.’
Those words were written in 1987, and I suspect that his annual visit is an indication that perhaps he now does feel more at home in Scotland’s human climate. It is always the most enjoyable rite of spring to see them both, to have them over for supper, to drink whisky together and for that favour to be returned at least once every visit. It has been an enormous privilege to have come to know both Leslie and Alastair. His has been the most extraordinary peripatetic life, which, he is fond of saying, stems from the first time he saw Irish travellers passing the manse in Whithorn. He asked his father where they were going, to which his father replied, ‘They don’t know.’ This fired Alastair’s imagination, and I suspect that at any time in his life if he was asked where he was going, his response would have been ‘I don’t know.’
Till total £192
19 customers
THURSDAY, 29 MAY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 5
A customer appeared at 9.15 a.m. with a fishing waistcoat and an over-groomed moustache, leaned over the counter and pompously asked if we have a section on ‘The Great Game’, as though he was Clive of India.
An elderly couple bought a book on the music of Scotland and commented as they were paying that they had found a hardback book of poetry by Stevie Smith that was £1 when it was published in 1970. They were surprised by ‘how much’ I was selling it for, which, it turns out, was £6. Often when this happens I attempt to explain that not everything goes down in value as it gets older, and in any case it is all relative. If that book were to come out in print today, it would probably be selling for at least £12. John Carter (from whom I bought the shop in 2001) used to reply to customers who accused him of naked profiteering by selling a book that was two and sixpence for £1 that, ‘If you’ve got two and sixpence, you can have it for two and sixpence.’ John was very good to me when I took over the business, and accompanied me on my first few book-buying deals, as well as showing me the ropes for a month before the shop became mine. One of his many pieces of invaluable advice was ‘My motto is the same as the Roman army: SPQR – small profit, quick return.’