The Diary of a Bookseller

TUESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER

Online orders: 4

Books found: 2

Laurie in bright and early. At 2 p.m. a customer with a very neatly trimmed moustache came to the counter and said, ‘I’ve been looking for a copy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World for years after I lent mine to a friend who never gave it back to me. I see you have a copy, but it’s £23. It seems a lot of money for an old book.’ So, after years of looking for a copy of The Worst Journey in the World, he finally found one, and a scarce edition too, but £23 was too much.

As I was sorting through the boxes of books from Haugh of Urr, I came across a copy of Collins French Phrasebook in a box. You really would have to be on the most dismal holiday to find the following phrases useful:

‘Someone has fallen in the water.’

‘Can you make a splint?’

‘She has been run over.’

‘Help me carry him.’

‘I wish to be X-rayed.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘I do not like this.’

‘The chambermaid never comes when I ring.’

‘I was here in 1940.’

‘Eleven hostages were shot here.’

Till total £218.93

20 customers