The Brightfount Diaries

‘Lunch is ready, dear!’ Aunt calls.

‘The voice of authority,’ says Uncle. ‘Come on, may as well eat. Don’t know what Derek and Myra will think of this room – it’s the draughtiest in the house.’

Mr and Mrs Yell are very kindly couple. Would insist when I got back that I went into their living-room and had a slice of cold pork for supper with them.

MONDAY

Workmen in, doing new shelving job in cellar. Ever since I’ve been here there seem to have been workmen romping round.

Poor old Mr Parsons, who as our packer looks on the cellar as his own domain, much put out by this strange activity round him.

‘Trouble with them’, he tells Rexine, ‘is they talks too much. Their boss is a bloke called Vaws; I reckon it ought to have been Jaws, because that’s all he does, jaw, jaw, jaw!’

Spent long while sorting out order for University of Lehukker in America. Dave, seeing me begin to dust a thickly coated set of Lytton, cries in mock-horror, ‘Don’t do that! Our only chance of getting rid of a bit of dust is to send it away with the books!’

Few customers about. Was sent after lunch-hour to get on with ‘Slaughterhouse’. This derelict bit of shop is crammed on all sides with unsorted volumes, piled on the shelves in no order. Being on ground floor, it is all too convenient place to store second-hand books when they are bought to await pricing and categorizing later. But in bookshops, later never comes. There always seems too much to do.

Amusing to note people’s attitudes to the Slaughterhouse. Miss Harpe, who left in the spring, always referred to it as ‘the Miscellany Room’ and refused to go in it. When customers find their way in, they either exhibit extreme displeasure to find such disorder or extreme delight at such a gallimaufry.

Gudgeon, our senior assistant, is on holiday. He spends all his holidays with equally silent friend, fishing up and down England. Poured with rain most of day; let’s hope the fish are rising well.

TUESDAY

Our new assistant, Miss Ellis, is not turning out quite as well as (I) expected. For her looks, much can be forgiven her, but was much shaken to hear her pronounce ‘Goethe’ as ‘Go-Ethe’, the second syllable to rhyme with ‘sheath’. Unfortunately, Mrs Callow, in whom the vein of satire runs deep, also heard it. Suspecting my leaning for Miss Ellis, she devised, and repeated throughout the day, this chant:

Goethe, Goethe,

What very prominent teeth!

They make you look a swine

Compared with Heine, with Heine.

Mr Brightfount in reminiscent mood. While Arch Rexine made himself ostentatiously busy, Dave, Mrs Callow and I listened with interest. It does not sound much fun to me to have earned only a guinea a week, but everyone who has tried it seems to have enjoyed it – in retrospect, anyway.

Mr B. started in the approved fashion, the hard way. ‘I’ve gone without many a meal to buy myself a volume I coveted,’ he admitted with a shade of pride. He is quite right, of course; one of my favourite memories of myself is sitting empty in pocket and stomach, reading Clive Bell’s Civilization. It would not have excited me half as much over fish and chips.

Mr B. says, ‘I explored every avenue connected with books,’ a nice metaphor that gives him a country background. But it was in London that he bought a partnership in a small publishing house. They are still functioning, and have just published By Bicycle Up Everest.

Dave asked him why he had thrown that venture up and returned to bookselling.

He chuckled. ‘Publishing?’ he said. ‘There’s no money in it!’

At closing, Miss Ellis was met by offensive young fellow who took her arm and led her possessively away.

WEDNESDAY

Very neat van stopped outside Fletcher’s, the nearby café. Little windows in either side showed bright books. Sneaked out to have closer look. It was an Oxford University Press children’s book van. Asked the driver where he was going. He winked and said, ‘Cambridge.’

Half-day. Tennis: not playing well this year. Polishing up my little article on bookselling, wrote it out neatly as possible, and posted it to the Journal and Advertiser. Don’t suppose they’ll have it. If they do take it and pay me for it, I shall buy myself a new pair of white socks.

THURSDAY

Life is very irritating really; nothing turns out as planned. Meant to get up early and go for walk but overslept. And Mrs Yell had burnt the toast – not for the first time, either. Mrs Callow greeted me with her nasty chant:

Goethe, Goethe,

What very prominent teeth.

But the afternoon was lovely. Mr B. and Rexine both had to go out, and Mrs Callow was upstairs helping Edith, our dumb office wench.

Dave and I chatted with Peggy – Miss Ellis. Sun shone, warping boards of escape books’ display in side window. Doors open: a dandelion seed drifted aimlessly in. Sold two expensive prints.

Cross Street seemed to dream in the sun. In the church next door, someone was playing the organ superbly. With the sound and the sun and the books and Miss Ellis, life suddenly achieved a pattern, rich and satisfying – and how old the pattern was, though the organ pipes were but recently installed and the books fresh from their authors’ hearts.

Or are books written mainly from the head?

Anyhow a feeling of tranquillity permeated the air. As we lolled on the counter, Dave recounted his most exciting moment in a bookshop. The war was on, and he was alone in shop with a nervous evacuee woman who came to work afternoons only, name of Flossy. The time for closing was drawing near; there were no customers within miles.

It was a soaking wet November night; out of the blackout came a wild-looking giant who commenced to prowl up and down the shelves. He wore no raincoat and his suit was saturated, but he paid no heed, merely dashing water out of his hair. Totally ignoring the two behind the counter, he marched round the shop like a being demented.

Flossy was alarmed. Did Dave think he had escaped from anywhere? Dave said nonsense; but the big man was certainly behaving queerly, leaping from section to section, pulling out a book here and a book there. Some he crammed back on the shelves, some – almost without glancing at them – he formed into a pile on the floor.

‘See what sort of stuff he’s going to buy,’ Flossy hissed; she was all for phoning the Home Guard. When the odd man’s back was turned, Dave sneaked over and glanced at the top book which had been selected. Its title made his hair stand on end: The Criminal Responsibility of Lunatics.

He had just informed Flossy of this when there was a power failure. All the lights went out. Dave was nonplussed, but not Flossy; she started to scream. Fortunately, the electricity reappeared in a minute. The stranger was gone.

Miss Ellis, who had been listening raptly, breathed, ‘Had he stolen any books?’

‘Of course not,’ Dave said. ‘That dream Flossy must have terrified him. He ran out in a panic!’

FRIDAY

Postcards arrived from Gudgeon, who spends his precious fortnights fishing in Norfolk. He sent me one this year for the first time – makes me feel quite important member of staff! Mr B. and Rexine got sober views of Lowestoft, Dave and I got broad behinds and red noses.

Gudgeon being away, Dave has to do the Clique, a duty conferred on him by Mr B. as if it was an honour. Perhaps it is, but this is difficult to determine from Dave’s demeanour.

The Clique is one of the instits. of the book trade. Every week, at a thousand bookshops scattered over the British Isles, people pop in and ask for books which are not in stock. Not only are they not in stock, they are frequently out of print, often are completely unheard of, and are entirely fictitious. The only method of obtaining these phantoms is to advertise for them in the Clique. To the non-bookselling eye, Clique has little to attract: it contains over a hundred pages blackly printed in double columns. These two hundred odd columns consist of authors and titles required by the scattered and hopeful booksellers. This means some nineteen thousand common or scarce books in all, and all ordered! There is a fortune waiting for anyone who could supply them all. But in a week’s issue we rarely report more than a dozen titles, and rarely get answers to all our requests.

All the jokes in Clique (and there are few) are accidents, and not very funny. To see someone advertising for Henry James: The Golden Bowel, is amusing only after thirty pages of dull and correctly printed titles.

SATURDAY

Work.

Poor old Peggy does very well for a beginner really: but today Edith discovered she has been entering everything up wrong in the day-book. Rexine amazingly patient – if Dave or I had done anything like that we should have been hanging by now from the sign over the entrance.

SUNDAY

Over to Graves St Giles. House in slightly better order.

Uncle very quiet during lunch, vanished afterwards without drinking his coffee. Aunt Anne looked very depressed, so asked her when we were washing up if I could do anything.

She shook her head and said, ‘He’s getting so eccentric.’

‘Is it because Derek and Myra are coming home next week?’

‘No – only indirectly.’

She looked as if she might have said something else, but at that moment I happened to let go of a plate, which changed the subject. Before taking her usual rest, she had a sherry, a bad sign.

Went for rather aimless walk hoping perhaps I might see Julie Howells, returned to find Uncle still away and Aunt in orchard, slashing vaguely at some nettles with a sickle. She looked up and began speaking before I could so much as greet her.

‘There’s something I ought to tell you, Peter,’ she said. ‘I think you ought to know, although we’ve always kept it even from your mother and father. Come and sit in the loggia.’

Obeyed, thoroughly alarmed.

‘You know D. H. Lawrence had scores of collaborators?’ she began.

‘Yes,’ I said, not committing self.

‘Well, he had anyway.’ Long silence. ‘You know your uncle is a literary character?’

‘I know he’s known Mr Brightfount a long time.’

‘My dear boy, your uncle used to be a reviewer.’

Said I had not heard this before.

‘I am afraid your mother and father have never been very booky people … However, that’s nothing against them. Mr Brightfount has never told you anything of this?’

Forced to ask Of What?

‘That your uncle once collaborated with D. H. Lawrence?’

At last the bomb was dropped! Of course was wildly excited by news, although furious to think of years wasted without knowing of this. What would Mrs Callow say when I told her?

‘Sit down and don’t behave so childishly …’

Begged her to tell me all about it, how it had happened, what they had written.

‘It was early in 1922,’ Aunt said, ‘and your uncle reviewed Aaron’s Rod in the local paper — it used to run a literary column once a fortnight until the old editor died. About a week later, Lawrence appeared at Newspaper House and asked to see your uncle.’

‘How marvellous! Had Uncle given it a good review?’

‘Far from it. We were living in the little house at Lower Wickham then. Lawrence arrived in time for tea.’

Seemed to me to be most wonderful thing I had ever listened to! Asked if they fought like dogs.

‘Not at all. He stayed eleven days. I did not care for him – we had only been married a little while – your uncle and I, that is. You could hardly tell at times that he was in the house – Lawrence, I mean.’

Asked what they wrote.

‘Oh, nothing that was ever published, of course. They were working on an idea that was going to be called ‘The Gypsy and the Virgin Kangaroo’, but it all fell through, and afterwards Lawrence made two other books out of it.’

Asked why on earth Uncle and Aunt had been so quiet about all this.

‘Well, it was not long after that Lawrence published Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and your uncle had always been well thought of locally, so …’

Uncle appeared at that instant through the side gate, bearing in his arms an enormous bundle of bulrushes, so that I never heard what effect Lawrence’s visit had upon his eccentricity.

Write this all carefully down now not just because it is the only important thing which has ever happened in our family, but because it is valuable scrap of history in its own right. Can’t think why Uncle did not write book on Lawrence; lots of other people did.

MONDAY

Wasted twenty minutes over one customer – and sold her nothing. She wanted a good English grammar that would do for her two boys for reference at home. I felt I knew those wretched children personally before she left: Dennis, aged nine, Wilfred, fourteen. ‘We want to give them really good careers. Trouble is, we can only afford it for one of them. Ought we to concentrate on Wilfred, who’s the elder? – but he’s always been so slow – or cut our losses and just plug for Dennis, who’s frightfully bright for his age?’ Etc., etc.

Finished with the suspicion that she wanted neither book nor advice, just a chat about her troubles. Odd how people unburden to strangers!

Can’t help worrying about Wilfred, though. If he doesn’t watch it, he’ll end up as a bookseller’s assistant.

Tennis in evening: singles with the Dodd girl. Bought her a squash afterwards. May see more of her.

TUESDAY

Late. Rexine saw me come in at 9.15, just looked. Expect I’ll hear about it some time.

Been thinking about yesterday’s customer. Her problem is much the same as a bookseller’s; to push the old, slow stock or concentrate on flogging what is already doing well? In Brightfount’s we’ve never decided.

Mrs Callow’s birthday. Gave her a box of chocolates – only person on staff who gave her anything. Dave and I invited up to her house this evening, went by bus. Very nice there. Food first class. Mr Callow science-fiction enthusiast, to Dave’s delight – we went for walk, left them chatting and diving excitedly into vast cupboard full of magazines with bright, neat astronomical covers and titles like ‘Stupendous’, ‘Staggering’ and ‘Unlikely’.

Have not said anything to anyone about Lawrence. Rather wish now I was going out to ‘Hatchways’ next Sunday, but have already planned to go home for week-end.

WEDNESDAY

Half-day. Rained. Bored. Should not be reading Kafka’s Diaries if they weren’t remaindered. Very good bargain.

Few customers show much interest in anything to do with books apart from whatever particular one they are after – except when it comes to remainders. Name seems to waken their interest. ‘Why are they so cheap? How can you afford to sell them at this price? Do the authors know about this?’

Any number of answers really. Most of our reduced books are not our own dud stock, but come from firms who buy up from publishers. Publishers get rid of books for several reasons, most of which they do not mention, for remaindering is not the glorious business publishing is; all publishers remainder, none do it with cocktail parties. Pity, that!

You are cordially invited to

A COCKTAIL PARTY

at

The Algernon Hotel, Bifold Street,

on

the – July, 19—,

in celebration of the clearance of the last seven hundred and seventy-three copies of Mr ABLE-FURBISH’S Still More Writing Really at Random for one shilling and twopence apiece.

TIES.

R.S.V.P.

And this because, perhaps, the publishers have overprinted a good book, to be on the safe side and avoid reprinting later. Or perhaps they had overestimated the market for that particular book (already glutted by Mr Furbish’s previous works, Writing Really at Random and More Writing Really at Random). Or perhaps Mr Furbish wanted a holiday in Old Calabria and required a lump sum in a hurry. Or perhaps his book had been rather drably produced. Or perhaps the publisher’s production manager had cut his costs on the book jacket, and nobody liked the look of the thing at all.

Or perhaps – which is quite likely – it was just a rotten book.

THURSDAY

Up v. early in burst of energy for swim by Poll’s Meadow. Back pleased with self and peckish. Landlady, spotting me, commented irritably, ‘Fancy getting yourself hungry like that before breakfast!’ (She operates under fixed impression rationing is still on.)

She was annoyed again at tea when I came in filthy from the shop. We moved two old sets of Scott from the Slaughterhouse to the basement and I had cobwebs on shirt and hair. Mrs Yell: ‘Now just look at you! And I thought books was a gentlemanly profession.’

‘Not the retail end,’ I explained wearily.

We all had some of Mrs Callow’s birthday cake in tea-break. Peggy Ellis promised to bake some buns and bring, one day. Dave, being funny, said he would bring some beer. Peggy: ‘You won’t really, would you?’ (She is disappointingly naïve)

Dave: ‘Of course I would. Why, last Christmas I brought some wine and we got old Brightfount so pickled he couldn’t say “Hodder and Stoughton”.’

I heard him telling her later that this Christmas we would have some mistletoe. Those two are getting very friendly, suspect romance in the air; but offensive young fellow still meets Peggy outside shop about twice a week.

Workmen have finished in basement, Vaws has gone. Old Mr B. looking very miserable all morning; perhaps he has had the bill. He spent long while shut in office with Rexine. We know these moods of old. Everyone apprehensive; the next devel. is generally a lecture by Mr B. on saving electricity, paper, etc., commencing with the words, ‘I’ve just been looking at the figures …’

‘He’s probably seen the announcement that U.K. booksellers had a turnover of forty-four million pounds last year,’ Dave said, ‘and thinks he’s not getting his fair cut of it.’

Sudden inrush of customers then, including A. H. Markham who wanted back a book he sold to us two years ago.

We still had it.

FRIDAY

Pay-day.

Tucking her envelope away, Mrs Callow observed, ‘Well, we must be grateful for small purses.’

Had my article on book-trade back this morning: ‘not of sufficient general interest’. Bang goes another promising literary career.

Expected lecture materialized to-day, before we went down to cellar for morning tea. Gathering us all together in the back of the shop by Rexine’s office, Mr B. commenced, ‘You’ll be interested to know I’ve just been looking at the figures …’ Usual talk followed. Try and save string.

The man from the public library came in shortly after and ordered a lot of Biggles books, which seemed to restore humour all round. He and Mr B. get on well together: they were Fire Watchers or something in the war.

Royal Family books selling well – especially on Fridays, market day. Farmhouses hereabouts must be full of them.

Customers not exciting on the whole. We have one or two people whose visits we look forward to: Owen Owen, the town councillor, Ralph Mortlake, who is rather an ass, Prebendary Courtnay, rather stiff, Professor Carter, vague, and of course A. H. Markham, who distributes sweets. And there’s old Maclaren, whose appearance we dread. And the plump fellow we call our Thief, although we’ve never actually caught him taking anything.

Of course, there is also Jocelyn Birdwine, but he hardly ever comes in nowadays. He was the most odd and charming person you could imagine. Now he owes us £4 14s. 6d. and has ceased to call.

Sometimes people make their inquiries so disinterestedly, so tediously, looking away or yawning as they do so, that I long to scare them back into showing a semblance of intelligence. What a luxury to wait until they’ve fumbled into silence and then to drop the dummy mask of assistant – saying in the most freezingly rude tone, ‘Now get back outside that door, come in briskly and say your piece coherently, and then we’ll see what we can do for you.’

Had a lovely customer in before we closed, fully compensating for a hundred stodges. She was dark, slender and sad, but smiled most beautifully. Imagine her name was something Shakespearian, probably Miranda. A car waited outside for her – I saw her climb into it with a flash of graceful legs, watched it move down Cross Street. Alas, she must be bird of passage; she bought an Ordnance Survey map of country south of here and then was gone.

Books of poets dead and gone

What Elysium have ye known—

This one day, in Brightfount’s tavern,

A spirit lit your spirit’s cavern!

Met Miss Dodd (Avril) with her brother after work. Spent agreeable evening with them. Returning late down Cross Street, saw lights on in Brightfount’s; could make out poor old Mr B. up in his office. He works so hard. Who’d be a bookseller?

SATURDAY

Gudgeon’s last day of holiday!

The people you know best are not your friends but those you work with: Arch Rexine, for instance, our junior partner. He was serving an imposing-looking man this afternoon who wanted Shaw first editions. The mere mention of Shaw and Rexine’s homely face lit up.

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this Shaw story,’ he began modestly. He goes on to describe how Shaw sent one of his plays to a famous but penurious poet, whom we will call S.Q. The play was inscribed, ‘To S.Q., with affection’.

But S.Q. was hard up, took the play to Charing Cross and sold it profitably. There, browsing a day or two later, G.B.S. happened to discover it, no doubt with relish. Next day, S.Q. received the play back through the post; under the previous inscription was written, ‘With renewed affection, G.B.S.’.

Rexine trots this tale out regularly. Any mention of Shaw, S.Q., or association copies and out comes the story. If you said ‘G.B.S.’ to him in his sleep, he would reel it off. But it is a good story. Must tell it myself when Rexine’s not about.

Got the 6.50 train home, tra la!

SUNDAY

Luxurious to wake between decent sheets. Did not realize till now that Mrs Yell’s smell of mothballs and toast.

Brother Andrew has delish. new waistcoat. His photographic business seems to be doing well from all appearances. Says airily to me, ‘In a couple of years I may be able to take you on as a junior.’

‘What’ll you pay me? Enough to buy pansy waistcoats with?’

‘Not likely – but by then I may let you wear this one.’

Think I’d rather stay at Brightfount’s. Remember an objectionable little man called Seepage, who sometimes comes to see Mr B., saying to Gudgeon, ‘This day-after-day business would never do for me. Can’t think how you can stand it year after year.’

To which Gudgeon, whose general method of reply is to say nothing, remarked, ‘You don’t think of it year after year, you just take it day by day.’

Forget what Seepage said to that – something about never letting himself get caught in routine. When I get that feeling myself, always recall a French waiter mentioned somewhere in Arnold Bennett’s Journals who had ‘learned a whole philosophy in the practice of his vocation’. This is much better face to put on things than, for instance, Kafka’s face. Did not get far with his Diaries: he groaned too much about going to the office every day.

MONDAY

I’ll say this for Arch Rexine, he does encourage us to take an interest in things. Mr B. occasionally asks for suggestions, but nobody’s ever known him act on them. Rexine will, though, in his own objectionable way. Some weeks ago, he asked us if we had any ideas for new selling lines. Dave, who is sold on that kind of thing, said, ‘What about Space Travel and Flying Saucers?’