Mum and Pop's shops

My family likes selling things

I’m reading now: Tourists: How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves by Lucy Lethbridge

I’m reading next: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

This week’s big release: The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy by Philippe Sands, author of East West Street. Here’s the blurb:

After the Second World War, new international rules heralded an age of human rights and self-determination. Supported by Britain, these unprecedented changes sought to end the scourge of colonialism. But how committed was Britain? In the 1960s, its colonial instinct ignited once more: a secret decision was taken to offer the US a base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, create a new colony and deport the population.

For four decades the government of Mauritius fought for the return of Chagos, and for the past decade Philippe Sands has been intimately involved in the cases. In 2018 they finally reached the World Court in The Hague. Fourteen international judges faced a landmark decision: would they open the door to Chagossians returning home or exile them forever? This is a tale about the making of modern international law and one woman's fight for justice, a courtroom drama and a personal journey that ends with a historic ruling.

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In my old job, colleagues would sometimes ask if anybody in my family had been a journalist. And with good reason: reporting is a trade that often seems to be inherited, much more than you would expect from mere nepotism over internship applications (fortunately now much rarer than it was). There are famous cases, like Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue, and her brother Patrick, diplomatic editor of the Guardian, whose father, Charles, edited the Evening Standard in the 1960s and 70s. But there are far more instances of relatively unknown reporters who just happened to have clocked early on that their mother or father was having far too much fun and somehow calling it work.

My answer to those colleagues was always ‘no’. The rest of my family maintain a far healthier attitude than mine to the goings-on of, say, the 1922 committee. But I have been thinking of these questions recently because, were they asked of my new venture, I would have a lot to fess up. If England is a nation of shopkeepers, my family is ever so English.

It started with my maternal grandfather, Reginald Lord…or, as I always called him, Pop. He died when I was seven, so I remember him only as a kind (if slightly gruff) figure, who would always be tinkering away in his garage, once making me a gigantic model-railway set. But he had earlier put this tinkering to even better use, managing to scrape together enough money from driving lorries and other hard toil to open a tool-hire shop, Lord & Co., on Chillingham Road in Newcastle in the early 70s.

By the time I was born, in 1990, my dad, Chris, and uncle, Tim, were largely running the show. They made a great team: Tim was a sparky and gregarious man, and therefore an extremely talented salesman, on whom I kept a close eye thanks to his mischievous insistence that he would one day throw me in our garden pond; my dad was much quieter, shyer, happier with his spreadsheets than with the lads… but a dab hand at keeping costs down, and the bank onside.

I never took much of an interest in the business itself, as it grew from one branch to a handful then to more than a dozen: much too oily and blokey for me, even at that age… But I do remember hearing my parents talking about work and that obviously rubbed off on me. So much so that, at about the age of seven, I converted a little bookcase in my bedroom into a stationery shop that I insisted every unfortunate visitor to the house must patronise. I called it Pen & Paper. I clearly remember my parents talking me out of selling stamps for less than I had paid for them. They agreed that it was a nice gesture but pointed out that I would pretty soon have no money for anything else. Capitalism, lesson one!

A more direct influence is my mum’s business. She set up Acanthus in Corbridge, the Northumberland village where I grew up, when I was ten. (I’m proud to say the shop is still flourishing, under new ownership.) That first shop sold gifts and interiors; a few years later, she opened a second just down the road, selling womenswear. I was fascinated by the whole process, accompanying mum on buying trips and, when I was a little bit older, working Saturday shifts in the shop. (Posh soaps were definitely more my scene than power tools!) One summer, I helped mum install her first electronic till, printing out all the barcodes and training up the sales assistants, several of whom seemed unfamiliar with the basic workings of computers.

None of this has helped much with the practicalities of establishing a bookshop. My parents are both retired and knew nothing about the book trade. They both counselled caution when I initially told them my wild idea.

But I think it has made the idea of running my own business seem much less intimidating. I could close my eyes and see and hear end-of-day till reconciliation, franking and mail bags and, yes, washed-out faces and raised voices after a gruelling couple of months of Christmas trade. More than that, the thought of running my own show didn’t seem preposterous…it wasn’t what other people did. My own family had done it! (Others inherited the same entrepreneurial spirit: Pop’s other two daughters, my aunts, both set up their own businesses.)

It also gave me a clear-eyed appreciation for how tough it is to run a shop. Mentors in the book trade say people often confide in them their dream of running a bookshop, adding that it would be a joy to spend all day reading. I was well aware that days were more likely to involve lots of time on my feet, unpacking boxes and interactions with some downright peculiar customers. I knew that liking people, with all their quirks and occasional frustrations, would be as much of a pre-requisite for bookselling as loving books.

So, whenever I do finally get my hands on those keys, I will think of mum, who has now inspired not one career but two, for it was surely the love of people-watching I learned behind her counter every Saturday that made me want to write about people. And I’ll think of Pop, opening the doors in Newcastle 50 years ago, a boss at last. What Pop would have made of a bookshop in Balham, I’m not sure. But I will try to emulate his entrepreneurialism and his tinkering, his relentless drive to improve his lot, and that of those around him. I owe him so much.

Tom