Adventures with Hereward Corbett of the Yellow-Lighted Bookshops
Writing this column is always an opportunity to reflect how lucky I am. Running a bookshop in a small Cotswold town is, for many people, living the dream, and I am amazingly privileged to be able to do it. Yes, it’s a business like any other, but most businesses don’t have customers like ours.
Customers like Edith Pond, in her eighties, who comes in once or twice a week while she is waiting for the bus, and normally buys a card or two. Catch Edith on a good day and she will tell you about the school she ran in the 1950s in Baghdad, and how she saw at first hand the violent overthrow of King Faisal in the summer of 1958.
Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing Edith talking to Mrs Williams, who I know was, at pretty much exactly the same time, living and working in Cuba, and who talks about seeing Castro with his all-female body guards in the capital, Havana. I don’t think that they are friends, but I love the collision of history that puts these remarkable people together buying cards in Tetbury in 2022.
All our customers are remarkable. I grew up on a farm, and have endless time for the local farmers, gamekeepers and other landworkers who use our shops. Occasionally, we take produce in part payment for books, struggling to work out how best to put a sack of potatoes through the till, or a pack of home-reared sausages (we make up the cash, by the way). The fact that there are still people who would like to live in a barter economy rather than the soulless world of contactless and online makes me very happy indeed.
Slightly at the other end of the spectrum are the children and teenagers who come in, actually in increasing numbers. One of our bestselling books of the year has been the Heartstopper series of graphic novels, now a Netflix series, and beautifully written and drawn. It has been a joy to welcome often slightly awkward (or giggly) customers who, having read these, decide to come back and discover something else. We like the fact that the bookshop becomes another place where teenagers can go.
If you are not a ‘traditional reader’ – whatever one of those is – it can be daunting stepping into a bookshop, and that is one of the things that makes us a bit special. All our customers, whatever their histories, come and browse and have a chat, and meet on equal terms.
Lucky indeed.
Follow Hereward on Twitter: @YLBookshop
Book reviews
Small Island
by Philip Parker
I love books with maps in, and this is literally a book about maps and how they inform how we see ourselves and who we are. Philip, a former diplomat and military historian, takes 12 key British maps and looks at their history and importance. His rather bouncy style makes this a perfect book for a summer read that informs, engages and entertains.
Penguin, £25
Colours of Art: The Story of Art in 80 Palettes
by Chloe Ashby
I did History of Art at university and am always excited when a book comes along that makes me think about art in a different way. This lovely book looks afresh at paintings that we may think we know well, like Munch’s The Scream or Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, inviting us to reassess exactly what we are seeing and why.
Frances Lincoln, £25
