I was looking through some old photos the other day, and it started me thinking about bookshop visits when I was a child. I was always a reader and much of my pocket money was spent on books. This was a time pre-MrB’s (I know it is hard to imagine, but stick with me). Thankfully it was a time when bookshops were aplenty and I had three main ones that I would visit.
The first was a small bookshop in the village of Chipping Sodbury. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was a lovely little shop, and the children’s section was at the back. I can remember very clearly buying Haphazard House by Mary Wesley there. JK Rowling was born in the town and lived locally as a small child. I wonder if she was taken there too?
The next shop I remember was a huge WHSmith in Broadmead in Bristol. I am not sure if it still there, but it was huge, or at least I remember it being so. They had a large children’s section and I used to sit on the floor to look at the books. I bought all of the Malory Towers books there, which I still have. When I checked the price, they were £1.25 each! I can also remember spending a whole £9.99 on a box set of Narnia books, which I still have. I had saved for them, and it seemed like a huge fortune at the time.
Finally was the special treat bookshop. Georges on Park Street in Bristol had several stores, being opposite Bristol University it had a couple of academic bookshops, one with maps in I seem to remember, but it was the main shop which I loved. I may be misremembering, but I think it had four floors, full of every book you can imagine, and a huge children’s section. We didn’t go often as it wasn’t in a part of Bristol we regularly visited, but I was taken as a special treat around my birthday. I still have many of the books I bought there, including an encylopedia of British birds, and another one on butterflies and moths.
I can remember feeling as though I had entered a treasure trove, and the non-fiction was a revelation. Beautiful, glossy books on subjects which made my mind race and wonder and most importantly think. The shop is still there, although it is much smaller now.
When I left home I lived in Scotland for a while, where I met the Delightful Mr F. I shared a flat with some other students, and that flat was above a bookshop. We were all working on an industrial work experience placement, and I when my first pay packet arrived in my bank account, I went out and bought a coat (it was Scotland and winter was coming) and the Gold Bat by PG Wodehouse. A sensible use of my new found income, don’t you think?
Do you have fond memories of a childhood bookshop? I am sure that Mr B’s is filling that slot for many children in Bath.
Feed Your Book Addiction 
Two bookshops are still in my memories. As a child, I was always with a book, I couldn’t go anywhere from home without one. I used to borrow lots of books at the local library. I used to stay at my grandmother’s on wenesdays and there was one -non debatable- condition : a book. Not very far from her flat there was a small bookshop, which I used to call "the bordeaux bookshop", because it was painted in very dark red and I loved this color : at noon, we would go there (after much pleading from my part) to buy a book, usually a "Club des 5" or "Alice" (but those ones were a little more expensive). My grandmother always complained that I read too quickly. And there was the Mecca of all bookshops : the FNAC. FNAC (there was a main store in Les Halles when I was a child) was THE place where you could find every kind of books and recordings, cameras, televisions… My father loved photography : he would go there every saturday to have a look at the most interesting and expensive cameras… only he never really bought anything. He hated shopping alone, so he would drag me there, on a saturday morning (meaning I had to wake up early !) and I was faced with the boring propect of staring at cameras for hours. So we had a little game : at one point, usually after one hour, I would leave him when he wasn’t paying attention and I would run straight to the book section. There, I would find a good book, sit on the floor with other kids and read until my father remembered that he had a missing daughter somewhere in the store. Then came the bargain : there had to be a fee, of course, for waking up early, taking the underground and staring at boring cameras without complaining. I never walked out of a bookstore without a least one book !
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How wonderful! This is such a lovely story and I bet your Dad didn’t mind buying a book or two.
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Yes, I was a very lucky girl : my parents never refused to buy me a book. They complained of course, because they knew that as soon as we went in a big store with a book section I would leave them and that they would have to run after me, but yes, they loved buying me books.
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