The Queen's Perk or How to Meet (almost) Anyone
posted by Barter Books @ 2:50pm, Sunday 12 July 2009.
The perk I have always most envied the Queen - I mean, beyond Her Majesty’s nice collection of tiaras (among which I have my favourites, o yes) - is the fact that she can meet and talk with, for however long, anyone in this whole world she wants to.
Imagine!
Nelson Mandela? No problem. The Dalai Lama? Done. Tom Stoppard? Tina Turner? Alec Baldwin? (Yeah, Alec Baldwin!) Or, for that matter, anyone who has ever contributed anything whatsoever to The New Yorker? Piece of cake!
In this way, actually meeting them, all these people would become - even as they must, surely, to the Queen, herself - just that, people. Or, anyway, not just photographs in the papers, images on TV, voices on the radio, a face on the inside cover.
Some would surprise. Some wouldn’t.
But which ones? And why? I am desperate to know!
But forget all these famous people, it’s not going to happen, I mean, what do I think, the Dalai Lama is going to come into our bookshop, Do you have a copy of Lost Horizon?
All right, then, how about those lesser mortals, the rising famous – all those people you’ve never heard of before but you’re hearing about now, and only time will tell if they rise up to the full soufflé or if they collapse back down into that same great black hole of anonymity wherein reside (to their envy, say the famous) thee and me.
Like who?
Like, I don’t know, any one of a zillion people, how about the writer, James Lever?
Never heard of him? Nevermind, neither had I. You’re sitting there doing a bit of light reading (The Nietzche Quarterly) and one of the book reviews is about this parody of the Hollywood memoir, one which, like those memoirs, occasionally includes the odd escapee fact. It’s called Me Cheeta after its ‘author’, Tarzan’s chimp. (Yes, Tarzan’s chimp.) And in it, Lever has Cheeta going on about his impoverished childhood, how he was discovered, how he became a part of the Hollywood cocktail party circuit (cut to photos showing Cheeta clowning around with various glam stars, David Niven, etc), but most of all about how much he loved Tarzan and hated Jane. And you can’t resist this book, so you buy it, and OK, it’s not Dostoevsky but, hey!, it’s absolutely brilliant - all at once amusing, poignant, and original. And while the Queen could obviously just ring James Lever up, invite him over, talk to me, James, you can't. Merde! You can barely even meet the person who lives next door, forget the Dalai Lama, forget James Lever!
Which takes me back to Square One, who can? The Queen and who else? Barack and Michelle, who else?
It’s how to meet them, famous or not, if you’re not the Queen or Barack and Michelle or if you don’t know the right (sometimes even the wrong) people, that’s the tricky bit.
What you have to do is get inventive.
I got inventive.
And I am here to tell you that at least to some degree, and without resorting to even the tiniest libidinous exploit, it worked.
What I did was this:
First, I started a little Talks Series in the bookshop, one which would (and still does) allow me to ask various speakers to give a talk once a month between September to June. That was my platform, that’s Step One.
Then, Step Two, I set about finding speakers (pestered friends, wrote on spec) who were either: a) unknown but had a good story to tell; or b) unknown but only outside their field; or c) unknown but only to those living outside our planet.
Then for Step Three, the hard bit: how to get a, b, or c to agree? Or, to put it another way, how do you make an offer which doesn’t involve copious amounts of money (some hope!) sound like an offer which involves copious amounts of money?
Answer: you blind them with razzle-dazzle.
Like what?
Me, I talk up:
1) Our fantastic location:
The location, I tell them, breathless, is in Northumberland, one of the largest and most beautiful counties in all of England, nevermind unspoiled (‘unspoiled’, good word, hints at organic, the environment) …
… Wherein, in turn, is located our town, Alnwick, lovely old market town, complete with magnificent medieval Castle (you’ve seen it a million times in films, Elizabeth, Harry Potter, etc), with its new big-time garden (roses, tree house, etc) – all this followed by a pause to let all those goodies sink in …
… Wherein, in turn, is located a seriously big (indeed, for a town this size, 7000 pop, maybe even the biggest in the world) Victorian railway station (at ‘railway’, pause again, the very word replete with friendly associations, think, whatever your listener’s age, Thomas the Tank) …
… Wherein, in turn, this bookshop, our bookshop, also seriously big, 10,000 sq ft big, a bookshop described (whoa!) in the New Statesman as ‘the British Library of secondhand bookshops’ and in The Telegraph as ‘magical’ …
… Then I sum it up fast, rap-style – a castle, a garden, a railway station, a bookshop - and then (hit this hard) all this located just five miles (only five miles!) from the London-Edinburgh Express stop at Alnmouth, Alnmouth being this exquisite little coastal village not even ten minutes away from the bookshop, I mean, what’s ten minutes! (Follow this with a double pause to allow ‘easy accessibility’ to sink in, followed by Are you still with me?)
If Yes, I carry on to …
2) The unique venue …
Our speakers, I tell them, use the old Station Waiting Room, seats fifty, such a nice old room, that room - high ceiling, wide-planked floor, the original banquette seating around the perimeter. And, in cold weather, there’s this lovely blazing open fire in front of which the speakers stand to give their talks all looking, I can only tell you, so very picturesque. (Some even survive.)
These two together, the locale and the venue, usually get me somewhere, a toehold! Which I badly need as this brings me to that dreaded if unavoidable moment when I must tell them what piteous honorarium (fancy word for money - good, eh?) we can give them.
“Would you mind repeating that?”
So embarrassing. I look up and they are already out the door.
Until Stuart (a hero) figured out a way to make the offer look better.
How?
Double it, he said, but if, and only if, they spend it in the shop.
Doesn’t sound like much, does it? I mean, how much can double piteous be?
And yet, more often than you can possibly imagine, their eyes, which only moments before were slits, suddenly become plates: “Yes, Please!”
No, I don’t understand it either. I can only guess it has to do with some inner vision involving themselves and all these books, miles of them, there for them to cherry-pick and (as they see it) for free .
I base this on what I’ve observed when they are actually let loose in the shop with their chit, they go crazy. You’d think they’d never been in a bookshop before. You see them dashing about all over the place in their sandals and trainers, down here, over there, their reading glasses balanced precariously on top of their head, or on the tip of their nose, or hanging down like wire monkey from one ear. But always, always, wherever they are, clutching their bounty close to them, their faces all shiny, Christmas. (Touching, really.)
So far, so good.
But now to the final step and, for me, the most important one of them all: that chance at last to attain my own goal, the Queen’s Perk - the one that would turn any speaker, even famous, from cardboard cut-out to flesh-and-blood reality. Ready?
I ask the speaker to dinner.
For those of you who don’t live in England, this question may sound simple enough (“Can you come to dinner?”) but here in England it causes instant hyper-ventilation: one is being asked to dinner at the house of a stranger.
One’s face turns white.
This dinner, I explain to him or her as quickly as possible to allay the shock, comes after the talk. And, yes, it is in our house. But you are not to worry. Our house is the old stationmasters’ house just over there (you can see its chimneys from the shop’s front door, see?), no need even to drive, we simply dash over after the talk – will you come? And, no, we can’t promise a gourmet meal, but we can promise a truly decent wine - will you come? You and just a small handful of other guests, all vetted (swear!), will you come?
And, of course, the speakers almost have to say Yes, don’t they?
And the moment they do, that’s it, my chance.
Which I take in the following way:
While our dinners are on a rather less grand scale than the Queen’s (just for starters, we don’t even have anything so posh as a dining room; we all eat in the kitchen), they nonetheless seem to work out.
They start off after the talk is over, to tell the truth everyone relieved (look, those talks, a bit nerve-racking, will anybody come?) but only after the audience has had a chance to talk with the speaker first, as well as, please God, to buy their book.
All of which gives me, in turn, a chance to race over to the house and go into action (throw an angry pusscat upstairs, the spuds in the oven, those old dead flowers out). This, until the speaker plus guests plus Stuart finally show up at the door where I meet them, Miss Efficiency (too bad about this large band-aid across my nose). The candles are lit, the wine uncorked, the speaker toasted (small round of applause), the jazz in the background turned low and then lower still as people’s voices take over the space, the men’s jackets come off one-by-one (twelve people packed in together like sardines in a kitchen with an AGA going full blast, you can imagine) and the evening starts to roll.
And, all right, sometimes the talks don’t work, or the suppers either for whatever reason, you can never tell. (Though I can tell you it doesn’t help when you drop the main course on the floor.)
On the other hand, sometimes, they do work, even well. (Am I allowed to say that?) And as for me, I will have siezed this chance, you bet, to put the speaker next to me, talk a bit, catch that glimpse or try to, of the 'real' person.
Anyway, however it goes and even just to the degree that I’ve been able to do it, it’s been more than a perk; it’s been a life-line. It has allowed me to meet so many people I would never otherwise have had the chance to meet. And, yes, all right, there have been a few yahoos. I bet even the Queen has met a few yahoos! (I bet some people have even thought I was the yahoo, the sods!) But I’ve loved it. Still do. Learned a bit, too.
If you’re interested, I’m including here an alphabetical list of my speakers so far. And because this post is already way long enough, I wlll be putting that same list of speakers, together with what they do and a bit about that glimpse, in my Links on this blog. I mean, for all I know, you might like a glimpse at one or two of the speakers yourself. They range from artists and writers to engineers and astronomers to academics and gardeners.
Some you will have heard of. Most you won’t. Just know that the best and the worst speakers have come from both groups. (Just how true that would be is one of the things I’ve learned.)
In any event, it is in this devious way that I have achieved my own version of that perk which I have most envied the Queen. And if you say that to compare my poor man’s version to the Queen’s is patently ludicrous (and you’d be right), nonetheless, I can only hope that Her Majesty’s, exalted as it is, has brought her as much pleasure as mine has to me.
Speakers at Barter Books since 2001
David Aaronovitch, Lindsay Allason-Jones, David Almond, Carole Angier, Dr Malcolm Aylett, Dr Keith Armstrong, Corelli Barnett, Stan Beckensall, Sir Alan Beith, Carol Clewlow, Hugh Cunningham, Theodore Dalrymple, Marjorie Deakin, Philip Deakin, Thomas Deans, Alistair Elliot, James Fleming, George Gill, Tony Harrison, Peter Harvey, Barry Hirst, Dr Wendy Hitchmough, David Hutchings, Richard Ingrams, John Johnson, Julian Johnston, Peter Jones, Miles Kington, Lucinda Lambton (with John Jolliffe, and Hugh Cantlie), Frank Lawley, Dr Richard Lomas, Grace McCombie, Val McDermid, Claire Macdonald, Dr Ian Maitland Hume, Nicolas Mann, John Millard, Judith Miller, Mr Charles Moore, Jane Owen, Jeremy Paterson, Harry Pearson, Kristian Pedersen, Katrina Porteous, Matt Ridley, David Ross, Anthony Sargent, Anne Stevenson, Rachel Terry, Trevor Thorne, Joanna Trollope, Bill Varley, Sir Arnold Wolfendale
Keep Calm and Carry On
posted by Barter Books @ 1:38pm, Wednesday 4 March 2009.
The original poster on
display at Barter Books
If you haven’t seen this WWII poster by now, the one with the hot red background and the words ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ beneath the crown of King George the VIth - honestly (and I say this with no disrespect), where have you been?
As of today's date, we, alone, have sold more than 40,000 since the year 2001 when we first began to sell facsimile copies of our poster - the only known original still in good condition outside those unearthed only recently from the vaults of the Imperial War Museum in London. And eight years on, we can’t even begin to guess at how many more thousands have been sold by our copyists. Or those who have copied the copies of the copyists, if you follow me.
Now, then, if you’re like me, you’re automatically doing your sums. Let’s see … 40,000 times whatever price seems right to you for a poster, say, £10, maybe more, (some people even sell these super upmarket versions, screen prints, etc, for nigh on three figures, can you believe?) And then you come up with this gigantic figure, Wow, you must be rich!
Don’t I wish.
We sell ours for as low a price as possible considering the overheads (currently £3-60, plus postage & packing) and still make a bit. And ‘a bit’ is enough. (Besides, says my husband, keeping our price that low annoys the hell out of the copyists.) Not that I wouldn’t like more money, I mean, Christian Louboutin, here I come! But, then, what’s the point in my going for five inch heels when I’d just totter over in them and die?
Still, even as is, the poster has been a super little earner, that it’s been.
Better still, thanks to Stuart’s finding it, we like to think we’ve restored something of value to the national archive, as it were - something somehow quintessentially British that would otherwise have remained unappreciated or even, eventually, lost altogether.
As rare as the poster obviously is, you might well ask how did Stuart find it?
The story is this: he was sorting through the usual boxes of books bought at auction, boxes which you very often get along with whatever it was you bid for whether you want them or not. And at the bottom of this one box, otherwise filled with pretty useless old cloth books from the ‘40s, was this sheet of heavy paper folded in half, then folded again. And when Stuart opened it out, there it was, this poster.
Which he then brought to me, “What do you think?”
Easy. "That gets framed.”
And that was before we knew its history, even though the crown of King George the VIth, together with the message, instantly suggested wartime.
Look, at a certain level, it doesn’t take genius to recognize something special. Decent cooks take one bite, stop, put down their fork, look heavenward, downgrade their chewing rate almost to zero, and start analyzing. Music lovers go for instant replay. Poetry lovers feel this little chill going up their spine. And when that something special has about it for whatever reason universal appeal, it sells itself.
What Stuart and I didn’t know was the extent to which our poster would seem to have just that: universal appeal. No idea that within ten years it would be written about in both regional and national newspapers and magazines. And certainly not, as seems increasingly likely, that it would stand a fair chance of becoming as iconic an image as the famous Kitchener poster of WWI, the one with the moustachioed English officer pointing his finger straight towards the viewer, ‘Your country needs YOU”.
Indeed, the Keep Calm poster may even have an advantage over the Kitchener: the message of the Kitchener poster is clearly all about wartime, whereas the message of Keep Calm, in spite of its own wartime origins, is dateless and universally applicable.
Anyway, we did frame it and then put it up in one of the prime spots in the bookshop, by the till.
Then, thanks to the web, we found out its history - one which we would later include with all our Keep Calm sales.
If you’re interested, here is a very brief résumé of that history:
‘On the eve of WWII, the British government produced a series of posters whose intent was to convey a reassuring message from the King to his people. ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ was one of three posters in a particular series and though millions of copies were printed of all three, ‘Keep Calm’ never went public. The reason for this is that it was meant for distribution only in the event of actual German occupation which, mercifully, never happened. After the end of the war, some few Keep Calm posters escaped being shredded. As far as we know, only seven remain in good condition: six in storage until recently in the Imperial War Museum, and the seventh, in Barter Books.’
Its later history - that is, what happened to it after we put it up on our bookshop wall - is this:
Over the next few months, it was striking how many customers asked about it. As they passed by it, we’d see them nudging each other and pointing to it.
Some even asked if they could buy it.
Many asked if we had copies for sale.
Stuart and Sarah (one of our staff members) thought that was a great idea.
I didn’t. I was too busy being Mrs Miniver (I’m like that). No, I said, making money off a time that was so terrible for so many (sound of bombers in the background) wasn’t on, it was still too soon (a mere sixty years), the time wasn’t yet, We’ll Meet Again on the White Cliffs of Dover.
So Stuart did a test run without my knowing it. He had some copies of the poster printed and sold them while I was away. (Yes, sneaky.) Then, when I came back, he showed me the actual sales figures, whereupon (how to put it?) the sound of the bombers somehow receded, Roll Out the Barrel.
In time, we began to see more and more of the copies showing up in various places around and about – an old country pub in Eglingham, a chic florist shop in Gosforth, a cricket pavilion in Bamburgh - yea, even in the very dining room, would you believe, of the most venerable Grande Dame in this whole huge county, my eyes like two plates.
And so the sales went, nothing earthshaking, slow but steady. We even had orders from various stockists, among them (we were, are, terribly proud of this) the V&A - the great Victoria & Albert Museum, perhaps the greatest museum in the world for art and design.
And then one December day in 2005, I opened the glossy magazine section of The Guardian (a top UK newspaper) to see a page devoted to the writer’s ‘Five Favourite Things’. And what was one of Susie Steiner's five favourite things, and in full colour no less? Our poster.
After which the deluge.
Since that time, we’ve had orders from both Houses of Parliament, Kensington Palace, umpteen hospitals, schools at all levels, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. Fashion designers have used it as part of a fashion backdrop. Someone else will soon be using it as a cover for a book. I could go on.
We kept thinking the good times were going to stop any day, the market satiated. But even when sales did go down (and they did), someone else would mention it in yet another article and sales would go up again. And then fall again. And then, like any decent yo-yo, go back up. Indeed, only two weeks ago, there was Stuart on regional TV holding up the poster and looking hugely happy (the sales figures, I guess, it's sure not my cooking), with the background of our Tennyson Installation clearly visible in the background, really, a super picture. Anyway, this yo-yo pattern, we’ve now got (more or less) used to it.
What else we’ve got used to: the copyists. At first, they would order them from us, copy our poster and start selling it themselves. (This is perfectly legal, by the way; it is long out of copyright.) Some of the copyists would credit us. Some, probably most, didn’t. Some would become our stockists and leave our website where we would eventually put it on the bottom right corner - a genuine first-generation copy!
One copyist tried to sue us for selling the poster that he, himself, had ordered from us, then copied. We thought this was highly original. It seems he wanted to establish a trademark, so his lawyer sent us a threatening letter. At which point our lawyer wrote him back, in effect, to bugger off. (He did.)
By now, the poster has been copied and recopied so many times that even the most ethical probably wouldn’t know who to credit. Not to worry. But let me take this opportunity to thank all those who did, all the more because they didn’t have to.
This is not to mention the sale of all the related products that have become, themselves, a mini industry. Even we (greed, dear boy, greed) have fallen prey. First, it was the mug, then the postcards, then the tea-towels, then the t-shirts, the mouse mat, and now, the newest addition (and we have sworn to each other the last) an apron - let others do as they may. And they do. Which means that in addition to all the foregoing, you can now get from other suppliers Keep Calm tote bags, hoodies, even rugs. So that we can only wonder what someone will come up with next. (Might I suggest a bedspread? You know, a bit droll. Maybe that someone could be you? Now, there’s a tip! FREE!)
Any regrets?
Yes.
The first is that for all our research, we have never been able to find out the name of the graphic artist who designed the poster. In my mind's eye, I see him (and I think very probably, back then, it was a 'he'), labouring away, paid tuppence, probably getting to and from work on his bike (remember: this was '30s England) or else, if he lived in London, on the tube that would, itself, become soon enough a bomb shelter. Well, whoever it was, we'd so much like to know his name and give due credit.
The second is another name we'll never know: the name of the person who owned our poster. Or how, as the poster was never distributed, he or she came by it. Or what made him or her decide to keep it, fold it, put it carefully away in the bottom of a box of books destined for the attic and then, sixty years later, for Stuart to find.
But both regrets pale beside what I love.
What I love, right along with everyone else, is how that poster, itself, would be, against all odds, a survivor of the war. How that little crown represents, still, a dignity that we seem to have lost, have we? How its message – so simple, so clean, so without spin – has turned out to have meaning not just for a single people in time of trouble but for all of us wherever we live, whatever our troubles.
The Inauguration of Barack Obama
posted by Barter Books @ 3:23pm, Saturday 24 January 2009.
Along with what appeared to be the rest of the known world, Stuart and I spent January 20th thinking about, waiting for, watching and listening to, listening to and cheering for, then cheering again for and saying Good Night to, Good Night and God bless to, Barack Obama.
I kept trying to think how often I had actually witnessed in real time, if only on tv, a major historical event in
What I didn’t let myself count: assassinations (eg, Kennedy) or catastrophes (eg, 9/11).
This was because January 20th was about feeling good about America and being American all over again and for all kinds of reasons, some even new. (Bet you think by 'new', I mean race - well, don’t you? Well, you're wrong. I just mean that, too.)
Anyway, I could think of only one other such historic event and that one, forty years ago: the moon landing. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” Neil Armstrong had said. (Oh, all right, so he forgot to put in the word 'a' in front of 'man', we know what he meant!). And we all felt, not just Americans, that what he said was true – a clear case of man’s reach exceeding his grasp. Until he did it.
And now, with the inauguration of Barack Obama, another clear case of a man’s reach exceeding what was, by all normal expectations, his grasp. Until he did it.
Anyway, here is what has stayed with me about January 20th, old news as it is by now, five whole days. Wonder how it would tally with what has stayed with you?
… Frustration that I had to miss out on so much, the BBC doing the best they could with TV coverage - only two hours of the inauguration ceremony, that's all, no more than that except for the 5 o’clock, then the 10 o’clock, news. So that I missed the parade, missed the walkabout, missed the Inaugural balls, I could have wept. Barack dancing with Michelle, to die for! (Couldn’t I have seen more on SKY? Probably, if we had SKY. Don’t. Stuart hates Murdoch.)
… Missing other Americans to share it with. (Telephone calls and emails helped, but it wasn’t the same.)
… Relief the moment I turned on the television that the weather in
… Awe at the sight of all those vast numbers of people filling the mall (rhymes with ‘pal’ not ‘fall’ in BBC speak, think I should tell them?) with half of me wanting to be there with everybody else, while the other half was looking at them turning blue with the cold and thinking maybe it was OK to be here inside instead?
… Seeing the parade of past presidents and their wives … George Bush the Elder having a hard time walking (hard to watch him trying, too - old age is hard) …Jimmy Carter, that trier … the Clintons, so clever, so slick … and then George Bush the Younger with Laura Bush (no, not stylish, but I think she looked lovely, is lovely; I can’t imagine what she’s been through, either, with her husband pilloried on a daily basis however merited, how would you have handled it?)
… Then those captivating little girls, Malia and Sasha - suddenly the most famous two sisters on the planet and I bet brilliant role-models-to-be for
… Aretha Franklin singing ‘My Country Tis of Thee’ with Obama listening, eyes closed, head back, soooo cool. (Loved the hat, too, Aretha, and don’t let anybody tell you different – it was right up there with some of the best of the
… the lovely little outdoor concert, John Williams’ ‘Air and Simple Gifts’. (If only I could have stopped worrying about how cold the musicians’ fingers must have been, poor Yo-Yo, poor Itzhak, poor Anthony. At least Gabriela Montero had on gloves, albeit fingerless.)
… The swearing in, using the Lincoln Bible (brilliant idea - as close to a sacred object as we’ve got in
… Obama’s address (I must concentrate here, get this right): intelligent summing up of who we are (mixed race, mixed religions, nonbelievers, too); where we are (hard times) not made easier by past mistakes (worse times), where we want to go (better times). And what we have to do (take personal responsibility) and the rest of the world has to do (hold out hands, forget clenched fists) to get there.
But, no, the speech was not inspiring. We didn't go silent at times, forgetting even ourselves, in the way people do when they hear something beautiful. We didn't come away quoting a single line. But does it matter? It does not. What Obama did, does, is talk to us as equals. As if he's not gunning already for our vote in the next election. Brilliant.
… Elizabeth Alexander’s poem, on the other hand, oh dear, I'm afraid that didn’t work at all for me.( “Clunky”, said Stuart.) Another missed opportunity and by a super poet for what we all did want, admit it!, that memorable line to hang on to forever, c'mon! Still, a treat to have this new tradition (is that a contradiction in terms?) - a poem for the occasion - restored.
… The seeing-off of George and Laura Bush into this great green helicopter, with the Obamas and the Bidens waving Goodbye to them for all the world as if they were two children going off to summer camp.
… Michelle Obama’s yellow dress, no, sorry, I'm afraid that didn’t work for me either. All the more as she has such style, I wanted it to be a wow. But, ah, Michelle, I who like Barack Obama all the better for liking you, that fairy-tale-for-grown-ups white dress at the Inaugural Ball (thank you, YouTube): perfect.
What a day.
It has been a long wait for a President that so many of us could feel excited about and at so many levels. (Just for starters, as someone wrote about the election, the miracle isn’t just that Americans voted for a black man but that they also voted for an unapologetic intellectual). But a great leader - even just the potential, if not the realization - doesn’t come often. Ask almost any country you can think of – ask