| An Honest Trade: Booksellers And Bookselling In Scotland. - Edited by Alistair McCleery, David Finkelstein and Jennie Renton. |
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When, in November 1989, The Scots Magazine published an article on the old established Glasgow booksellers, John Smith and Son, the company’s business was booming. As well as its big, rambling flagship shop at 57 St Vincent Street, MD Robert Clow commanded a string of other outlets including one, newly opened, around the corner in Queen Street.
A few years later it was very different: the business was drastically slimmed down, parts of it sold to one-time competitors. What went wrong? Robert Clow is one of several experienced book-sellers who look back on their careers in An Honest Trade: Booksellers And Bookselling In Scotland.
Now retired, Mr Clow describes how the ending of the publishers’ Net Book Agreement opened the floodgates to price-cutting which the ordinary bookshop could not afford. This, and huge chain bookstores, made the conventional shops uneconomic.
Other contributors tell much the same story, though Willie Anderson, who succeeded Clow at John Smith’s, believes fixed book pricing had to go. It was, he believes, “holding the industry back”.
Such arguments aside, there is much in these reminiscences to appeal to the general reader who may simply want to be reminded of the special character of yesterday’s bookshops. Many in Edinburgh will remember the splendid name Bauermeister above a certain shop on the Mound. Bill Bauermeister recalls his family’s business there and explains why they moved to roomier premises on George IV Bridge.
It is not so long since the Thin family ran bookshops in Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth, Dumfries, Inverness and other towns. My own favourite was The Edinburgh Bookshop on George Street. Ainslie Thin charts the rise and fall of an apparently unstoppable empire.
William Kay, James Glover and Robert Henderson are others who relate their experiences in the book trade. Clearly, they all loved “being in books” though they also recall the long hours, the back-breaking nature of the work — and the dust!
However, this book’s title perhaps promises more than it delivers. There is no historical overview and the contributors, while well chosen, are few. The editors might have spread their net more widely and at least included a short summary of other notable booksellers in Scotland, past and present. |
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