It’s both pleasing and surprising that after nearly six years, people still come up to me in the street and tell me how much they loved and miss Inprint Bookshop.
It certainly wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but I never made any bones about focusing on books and objects that I found interesting, amusing or exciting.
And after all, in such a tiny shop it wouldn’t have made sense to stock a little of everything as that was unlikely to satisfy anyone; least of all me.
A question I’m still asked is; where did you find so many weird and wonderful things? The answer is that the sources changed over time. But essentially the trick was to get as close as possible to the point where people were discarding things. So jumble sales; charity shops; local auctions; flea markets, and so on. Today, I’m sad to say, most of what I buy is online.
Twenty-odd years ago a major source was the huge car boot sale held on Wednesdays and Sundays in Gloucester’s abandoned cattle market. It was vast and drew sellers from Wales; across the South West, and up into the Midlands. Whatever the weather, it started at 6 am, and you had to be there early.
I think this was probably the most exciting time for those who were prepared to get down and dirty in the quest for treasure. Hopefully, the following account of a dark, bone freezingly cold morning in 2003, gives some sense of just how exciting it could be.
Cast iron cold in the grudging early morning light; scenes from Bruegel spring to mind. Figures in ill-fitting clothes, with bad teeth and disturbing haircuts, scurry across the grim tarmac. Judging by the stiffness of their limbs, some must have been wearing their entire wardrobes.
The detritus of interrupted lives spills from the maws of battered vans, sprawling in heaps and forming intestinal trails between the frozen puddles. Robbed of meaning, context melting with the ice — the fruit of the house clearance.
I join the dance. Sliding between vehicles; swerving round knots of haggling punters; skipping over crouched figures mesmerised by the contents of mouldering boxes. Don’t look — listen. Tune out the raucous clamour of objects without virtue and strain to hear that small, quiet voice.
We pickers-over flap around each new arrival, rapt in our quests like crows on a rubbish tip. I am drawn to a recently disgorged assortment of old newspapers, photos of the long dead, broken picture frames and — A hint of Gothic typeface and a flash of colour; a short haggle; cash pressed to the flesh and they are mine! Fend off offers of a quick profit and stash them safely.
Later, with the feeling slowly returning to my fingers and caffeine reviving my dulled senses, I take a proper look. Hmm, “Setxa etas mundi”, “Folium CXCVII”. Can it be? Yes it is! Two leaves from the 1493 first edition of Liber Chronicarum, or the Nuremberg Chronicle to you and me; beautifully hand coloured AND containing one of the first known printed depictions of a spectacle wearer.
“Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them …” Henry David Thoreau.
