Шон Байтелл - The Diary of a Bookseller

There was a reported sighting of Captain at the Martyrs’ Stake car park, at the bottom of Wigtown hill. Anna set off straight away and returned with him. Clearly the cat found at the tennis court yesterday was not Captain, which would explain why he started scratching the well-meaning woman who attempted to relocate him.

No sign of the swallows on the wires any more.

Till total £158.50

16 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 1

Bethan and Nicky were both in today, so I set them to work picking and packing the Random Book Club mail-out. I don’t think I trust either of them enough to pick the sort of books that I imagine the subscribers would enjoy, but with the festival looming I am stretched to capacity, so I have no choice but to delegate. Nicky asked Wilma if she would mind sending the postman to collect the sacks tomorrow.

One of the books from today’s orders that we couldn’t find was one that I had sent to Ian in Grimsby when he had taken our online stock, but which I had failed to remove from Monsoon back then, so it was still listed as available from us. This normally results in negative feedback, as we are obliged to cancel the order.

I spent some of the afternoon interviewing more local business people for the radio station that will be broadcasting from the Martyrs’ Cell in the County Buildings during the festival. One of the interviewees was Nicky, who described me as ‘a big ginger conundrum’.

The co-op re-opened today, to much excitement, but by the end of the day everyone was complaining that they couldn’t find anything any more.

Referendum day: I had my own vote, and Callum gave me his proxy vote. He has gone off on the Camino – the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. After the shop closed, Eliot and the festival interns, Beth and Cheyney (they get the glamorous jobs, such as stacking chairs and answering the office telephone), came round and we watched the results coming in. Eventually went to bed at 2 a.m., depressed at what was obviously going to be a ‘no’ vote to Scottish independence.

Till total £237.96

20 customers

Online orders: 3

Books found: 3

Bethan and Nicky both in the shop again today.

Spent the day recording more interviews for the festival radio station, leaving Nicky in charge. She arranged for the postman to pick up the six sacks of random books at 3 p.m. This time next week the festival will be starting.

Till total £157

10 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 2

Nicky arrived ten minutes late, gloating over the referendum result.

Twigger emailed:

‘ Hey Shaun you colossal ginger bastard – insult a few writers for me will you!

Love to all my friends in WIGTOWN, Rob.’

This year is the first year in a long time that Twigger won’t be at the festival – he is off exploring somewhere in the Himalayas for his next book, which is, I think, going to be a sort of topographical biography, similar to his last book, Red Nile.

As I was unloading some boxes from the van, Carol Carr, a local sheep farmer, was passing. We exchanged pleasantries and she asked how I was, so I told her that I was fine, apart from my back. She looked surprised and told me that Rob, her husband, has a bad back, as do most farmers. It had not occurred to her that book dealers spend a good deal of time lifting boxes of books in and out of vehicles and off the floor in uncomfortable, awkward spaces. I calculated that I lift about fifteen tons of books every year, and those fifteen tons will be moved a minimum of three times.

Six days until the festival begins.

Till total £193.50

17 customers

Online orders: 5

Books found: 5

Nicky and Bethan in. Nicky brought in a cake that was made to look like a giant caterpillar. It had been reduced to 49p in Morrisons and she picked it up at the weekend. It looks absolutely revolting, covered in the most hideous icing.

The festival begins on Friday, just four days away, so most of this week will be spent in frantic last-minute preparation.

Bethan spent the day pricing up and shelving the Penguins that Bev brought in earlier today.

Zoe and Darren arrived. They are actors with whom Anna is going to be doing some performance art during the festival. Rehearsals start tomorrow. They are going to be re-enacting scenes that are set in bookshops from famous films – The Big Sleep , Notting Hill , The NeverEnding Story.

Checked the status of the delivery of FBA boxes to Amazon in Dunfermline – the boxes that UPS picked up have not arrived there yet.

Today brought some very sad news. Alastair Reid died yesterday. I will write to Leslie, his widow, tomorrow. Finn telephoned to let me know at lunchtime.

Till total £145

22 customers

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

Nicky and Bethan in. As the festival is looming, they spent the day making sure the shelves are full and tidy. Three days until it begins.

After several whiskies I wrote to Leslie, Alastair Reid’s widow. Springtime will lose some of its lustre now that I know that it will no longer be marked – along with the bluebells and the swallows – by his arrival.

Till total £372.96

21 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 1

Bethan in today, but no Nicky.

I moved the furniture from the big room and set it up for the Writers’ Retreat. Davy Brown, the friend and artist who holds art classes upstairs, arrived and hung his paintings there. They will be there for the duration of the festival. The Writers’ Retreat began in the relative infancy of the festival’s history, when Finn was director of the Festival Company. He had invited – among others – Magnus Magnusson to speak one year. His talk was at 8 p.m. At 6 p.m. he decided to find something to eat. In those early years, when the audiences were relatively small, most of the cafés, pubs and restaurants stopped serving food at 6 p.m. and, unable to find a meal anywhere, Finn called me in desperation and asked if they could come here for something to eat, so I quickly made some soup and a plate of leftovers, and the three of us sat down and had a meal in the house. Afterwards, Finn asked if I would consider keeping a supply of cheese, oatcakes and soup at the ready for the rest of the festival in case such an emergency reoccurred. It did. Several times. After a few years this had grown to the point at which we required a caterer to come in and manage it, and we had official opening hours. Nowadays, we feed up to seventy people on busy days, and at the weekends we treat them to fresh local lobster.

The marquee went up in the town’s central gardens today. More lorries arrived with chairs, flooring, heating and sound equipment, and another marquee. Just two days until the festival starts.

I spent an hour on the phone to UPS and Amazon in an effort to track down the missing six boxes of books we sent up to Amazon’s Dunfermline warehouse as part of our FBA shipment, but without any success. I appear to have entered a hellish world of corporate three letter acronyms.

One of the festival volunteers borrowed the van to pick up Astrid’s plywood cut-outs for the festival from her studio in Edinburgh and bring them down here. (Astrid is one of the artists in residence this year.)

This afternoon I made a stage from plywood and timber for Allison’s play. She wanted parquet flooring, so I’ve found some stick-on vinyl and ordered it.