The Diary of a Bookseller

SATURDAY, 21 JUNE

Online orders: 3

Books found: 3

Nicky in.

Just before 1.30 p.m. I remembered that I had arranged to look at the books in Port Logan and headed over there. I overshot and ended up at the neighbouring, almost identically named, Old Schoolhouse. I knocked on the door and was met by an elderly couple, who explained that I had driven past ‘Bob and Barbara’s house’ and pointed me in the right direction. As I was leaving, the old man said, ‘Give my regards to your parents. Your father and I used to do the commentary at the Lochinch Game Fair.’ I have no idea who he was, but, following their instructions, I drove the short distance to the correct house and was greeted by Barbara and her two dogs.

The house was a beautifully converted Victorian school with stunning views across the Irish Sea. There was a ruined pier here in days gone by, but that was replaced by a quay and a bell tower designed by Thomas Telford in 1818. What is left is what Seamus Heaney might have described as ‘the hammered shod of a bay’. Bob and Barbara – a retired couple – showed me through the house to their library. Both Bob and I had to drop our heads because of the low door into the room. They left me to go through the books, which were mostly paperbacks in near new condition.

We chatted about living in so far-flung a village for a while, and I was surprised how well we got on: most book deals involve the minimum of conversation. I picked out five boxes’ worth, gave them £65 and drove back. The books included some excellent, very saleable material: sets of Hemingway, Steinbeck, Chandler, Buchan, all in uniform editions, and a good number of Penguin Modern Classics. Their taste in books was remarkably similar to mine, and I wonder not only whether that was why I found them so agreeable but also whether I would have enjoyed their company as much had I not been aware that our reading tastes were so compatible.

Alastair and Leslie Reid came over for supper. Alastair’s response to the question of what he would like to drink is invariably ‘Whisky’. This time I was prepared and had a bottle of Laphroaig handy. It is unfortunate that Anna has gone back to London, because it turns out that Alastair used to share a lift to Sarah Lawrence College with her hero, Joseph Campbell. She would have been ridiculously excited. Alastair has rubbed shoulders with many of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, once famously incurring the wrath of Robert Graves in Spain by eloping with his muse, Margot Callas.

Till total £196.90

25 customers