I have just spent the weekend in Holmfirth.
It’s a delightful Yorkshire mill town, made famous by being the location of the BBC sitcom, “Last of the Summer Wine”.
These Yorkshire towns have a lot going for them. I am a frequent visitor to others, often with a literary connection. Places like Haworth, famously the home of the Bronte Sisters and Hebden Bridge, the resting place of Sylvia Plath, the American poet, novelist and wife of former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. With their stone buildings, tall chimneys, hills, moors and downright miserable weather it’s easy to see why these often remote yet fiercely close-knit communities inspire great works of literature.
Holmfirth has two bookshops. It could have more, but this weekend I found two. One sells second hand books, the other new. One is a second generation family business, the other set up by two retired teachers. One has been going for 35 years, the other about half a dozen. Both are labours of love.
Daisy Lane Bookshop is a gem of a second hand bookshop. Four large rooms offering a huge selection of books and at prices that are just fabulous. The owner and the resident cat were both delightful and we spent as long talking with him as we did browsing books. There is no computer, yet the thousands of books are carefully catalogued and shelved by subject material and the owner can tell you immediately if he is likely to have something you are looking for and where it can be found. The history of the shop is charming, and a story that would make an interesting read in its own right. You can easily while away a couple of hours there and you are bound to come out with something.
‘Read’ is a small, modern, independent bookshop with a meticulously curated stock and a design and layout that immediately welcomes you and pulls you in like many of the great modern works that they stock. There is a room with children and young adult books with a yellow upholstered chair where parents can sit and put a child on their knee as they simultaneously open a book and open their child’s mind to the joy of reading. Behind the counter are a couple of shelves with books containing hand written order slips identifying these as being ordered for customers.
And that got me thinking. There is something about bookshops that is more than just what they sell. These are places where knowledge, joy, enlightenment and entertainment are all shared with visitors. And not just through the pages of the books themselves. In these times of faceless internet sellers churning out “Customers Who Bought That Also Bought These…” recommendations it is such a refreshing pleasure to be able to hold a conversation with a knowledgeable and invariably well-read human who can tell you much more than just what books are similar to the one that you bought last week. And it helps that they know that the book you bought last week was a gift for your mother, so they don’t pointlessly try and flog you the latest Mills and Boon!
The convenience and cost saving offered by the likes of Amazon have their place. But so too do the knowledge, skill and care of the independent bookshop. If we let places like these disappear then we will lose something precious. What price a few extra pounds and maybe a little more patience if it means we can keep treasures like these places alive so that our kids can take their kids to browse in them and maybe pass on a love of reading and of books that is so vital today. Probably more than it ever has been.
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