Шон Байтелл: The Diary of a Bookseller

After I had locked up I went to the co-op for milk and bread. Mike was working there, and he told me that the Cats Protection League had neutered the spraying cat he had trapped. He and Emma (his partner) have decided to keep it.

Till total £288.48

14 customers

Of course, one person’s good book is another person’s bad book; the matter is entirely subjective. One of my friends is a fine jewellery dealer in London. I once asked him how he decided what to buy and what not to buy when he was at auction. He explained that when he’d started out in the trade, he bought things that looked inoffensive and that – he considered – would have universal appeal. He quickly learned that these did not sell particularly well and rarely commanded a high price, so he changed his strategy – ‘Now, if I see something which evokes a strong reaction in me, I’ll buy it. Whether I absolutely adore it or utterly hate it, I can guarantee that I’ll get a good price for it.’

Plenty of booksellers specialise. I don’t. The shop has as wide a range of subjects and titles as I can cram into it. I hope that there’s something for everybody, but even with 100,000 titles in stock many people still leave empty-handed. Whether someone buys a Mills and Boon for £2.50 or a bashed paperback copy of Spinoza’s Ethics for £2.50 is irrelevant. Each will, I hope, derive equal pleasure from the experience of reading.

Online orders: 2

Books found: 2

Norrie came in and replaced the strip lights with chandeliers, plunging the Scottish room into darkness for the entire morning. They look infinitely better than the hideous strip lights, which lent the place the atmosphere of a hospital corridor. Over the years I’ve been replacing them and only have four left to do out of the twenty-two that were here when I took over in 2001.

Andrew (the volunteer with Asperger’s) came in at 11 a.m. and worked until noon. He’s made it as far as the Cs in the crime section now but became very flustered when someone asked him where the railway books were, and had to have a sit down.

This morning I received an email from my mother, who had to borrow my father’s iPad to send it because hers is ‘constipated’ – could I come down and fix it some time soon? I replied that I’d get round to it as soon as I could.

At 3 p.m. I drove to the bank in Newton Stewart, returning just before closing to discover that Cash for Clothes had been and collected the boxes of books, and paid me £25 for them. They pay by weight and took away half a ton of books.

In today’s post was a letter from Mrs Phillips (‘ninety-three and blind’) addressed simply to ‘Shaun Bythell, Book Dealer in Wigtown, Scotland’, which by virtue of Galloway being so unpopulated found its way here. As always, it was a request for a book for one of her great-grandchildren: this time Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Till total £71

10 customers

Online orders: 1

Books found: 1

The first visitor of the day was a wild-haired woman who regularly drops off the Green Handbook for Southwest Scotland , a booklet full of addresses of homeopaths and crystal healers. She came round when I was on the telephone. Every time she visits I’m on the telephone, so I never have the opportunity to tell her that I don’t want her to drop them off any more because nobody ever picks them up.

She was closely followed by a couple in their late sixties, clad in clinging Lycra cycling gear. They came to the counter with four Wainwright Lakeland climbing books in nearly mint condition. The man put them on the counter and asked, ‘What can you do for me on those?’ so I added them up. The total came to £20, and I told him that he could have them for £17. He visibly winced, then replied, ‘Can’t you do them for £15?’ When I pointed out that would be a 25 per cent discount, he said, ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ Finally they coughed up the £17 and left a trail of resentment in their wake.

Till total £115.94

10 customers

Online orders: 6

Books found: 5

The day got off to a bad start with a telephone call from Carol-Ann at 8.50 a.m. telling me that she was outside and asking why the shop wasn’t open. I told her that I open at 9 a.m., came down and let her in. I had forgotten that she had called the previous afternoon to ask if it was all right to meet with one of her business clients in the kitchen. She works for a company that helps people to start small businesses and has a vast area to cover, so she often uses the shop as a place to hold meetings. She immediately accused me of looking rough and developing a bald patch. Nicky arrived shortly afterwards and agreed about both.

Mother emailed me again to request assistance with her constipated iPad.

After lunch I drove to Glasgow to look at a collection of railway books. It turned out to be an extremely good library, all in pristine condition. The seller was an old man who was dealing with his late brother’s estate. I gave him £400 for eight boxes. Books about railways are probably the best-selling subject in the shop, something I could never have imagined when I bought the business fifteen years ago.

The day ended with an Association of Wigtown Booksellers’ (AWB) meeting here at 5.30 p.m. Tea, biscuits, etc. as usual. The discussion was largely about what we are going to do for a venue during the May festival now that the distillery has closed. It’s a bit embarrassing since the theme is whisky and most events were scheduled to take place in the distillery. The May festival is organised by the AWB, which comprises a handful of us who have bookshops in Wigtown. We have no budget, and the festival is run on a shoestring. Although it lacks the financial weight and big names of the September festival, it is slowly becoming part of Wigtown’s cultural calendar. Anne, one of the full-time festival employees, provides invaluable help with putting the programme together, and I suspect that without her it might not happen.

The meeting went reasonably well, with the usual discussions about new signage, who is doing what, Joyce’s broken shoulder etc., but the highlight came when the subject of producing an app about the Wigtown Martyrs was brought up. Most of us were either vaguely supportive or indifferent to the idea, although two of the company held fairly extreme polar opposite opinions on the subject and a row ensued during which accusations of bigotry and prejudice were levelled across the table while the rest of us looked on in awkward embarrassment.

The Wigtown Martyrs were two women who refused to wear the religious straitjacket of their day: the late seventeenth century. During that time dogma dictated that – among many other things – the king was recognised as the official head of the Church. In Scotland there was opposition to this, and the rebels were known as the Covenanters. They faced ruthless persecution by government forces in what became known as ‘The Killing Times’. Margaret Wilson and Margaret McLaughlan were two women of the covenant who were executed for their beliefs. They were tied to wooden stakes on the shore at the foot of Wigtown hill as the tide came in. The elder Margaret was tied further out in the hope that the younger Margaret, watching her drown, would change her mind and conform. She did not. There is a monument on the salt-marsh marking the site of the execution – the Martyrs’ Stake – and their graves are in the Church of Scotland cemetery in the town. Before they were taken to be drowned, they were imprisoned in the cell in the old tollbooth. This room is now known as the Martyrs’ Cell.