Self-employed

I was thinking about the trail of events and non-events that lead me into this occupation.

At the outset the urge to become a second-hand bookseller was no more or less than a need to fill in the time, preferably pleasurably but dedinatley with incentive. Knowing myself reasonably well I was (still am) aware that without a pressing reason to gt dressd in the morning I probably wouldn't and avoiding that situation seemd important. Once the children had finally left home and I was on my own and the world was my oyster I spent two weeks lying in front of videos. Buffy The Vampire Slayer to be honest. I bought them all. And very expensive they seemed too at the time. I retreated into a world of fantasy, of courageous acts, a mythical quest to seek good and fight evil, of companionship, humour, wit played out against a quite realistic backdrop of the struggle to deal with normal everyday events. Not my age group but I loved it then and still do. Reality crept in once or twice a day when I had to get up to change the video or get food, and I reviewed options. I didn’t want to work for Charity. I didn’t want to join in with the events the Findhorn Foundation have on offer. I didn’t want to... the list went on. Some days it was depressing. It did seem as if my life was over. I could see no future for myself because there was nothing I wanted to do.

One thing I had never done properly up to that time in my life was earn my own living. I had worked once as a teacher but never been convinced by my role, and rarely enjoyed it. I enjoyed the children, young adults in a couple of schools, juniors in the school I stayed in longest, but it was never a vocation. When Britain went into the Common Market ( the EU - what was it called at the time?) and my husband got a job in Brussels I was ready and happy to go. Fully anticipating a new life in a wider, more exciting pond. It didn’t work out that way for me but I had the babies there and earned my label as a mother. At one time I was fairly convinced that it was all about having a label. Like those name tags people so often wear these days so you can call them by their name or remember them if you need to complain. There was safety, I thought, in having a label. Nothing in my life had ever given me the need to feel safety was an issue but that’s how I felt. I think I inherited it from my mother. The fear of other people. The need to have an identity to hide behind. Being a mother served me well for over 20 years and now I was a grandmother, but it didn’t occupy my every day life. I was just an ageing woman without an identity. I was really scared I would just fade away because no-one was seeing me. I used to look in the glass a lot. It wasn’t just vanity. I might have faded. There is an episode in Buffy about a girl who is totally ignored at school both by her peers and by the teachers. She feels invisible and gradually she actually becomes invisible. From which point she also becomes vengeful. the ‘happy ending’ to that little tale is that the FBI/CIA take her to a school where there are other invisible young people all learning the arts of infiltration for political purposes, and assassination. I empathised with the girl but didn't want to become an assassin.

Once I had eliminated all the things I didn’t want to do I started to think about becoming a shopkeeper. I very much enjoyed taking bric-a-brac to car boot sales from time to time and running a shop had always been in my mind, maybe because my parents kept a village store when I was very young. That store stills lives in my imagination as a warm place full of interesting smells and a constantly changing parade of characters who came in for their supplies, everything from cheese to paraffin oil and Jaeger skirts. More of those reminiscences another day. Once I had suggested to my mother we might run a shop selling the silver she was so good at fashioning and the macramé that was my hobby at the time, but it wasn’t real. I searched around for something I would like to sell. Books suddenly came to mind. I started taking them to boot sales and did reasonably well with them. Then I remembered someone had told me about a secondhand bookshop in the area. Until the day I walked into the shop which was to become my -er - alma mater (? ) I had never been inside a secondhand bookshop before. This is not common amongst people who start selling books. Most have been collectors for years; know something about the trade because they have haunted the outlets that they hope will provide them with the volumes they are searching for. They know about tree calf and how hard vellum is to clean safely, even understand terms like half-bound and quarter bound; the meaning of 4to and 8to. They already love old books. I knew absolutely nothing of these things and rather disliked secondhand books which I associated with smoke-smelling, food stained library books.

Well, one thing led to another as the saying goes, and here I am. I have found a career I wish I had found many years ago when I was fitter and younger. Though I complain about the occasional customer and often emulate the grumpy eccentric vague architypical bookseller, I am really in the right place for me and finally wearing a label with pride. Most days.

The fun thing about being self-employed is the acquistion of money. That sounds obvious - fundamental even - but to me it is still an exhilerating experience and it's almost a game to see if one week can beat the score of the week before; if April this year can do better than April last year; if I can find the books that will turn browsers into customers. The money I take is the symbol of success rather than merely a way to pay the bills and get myself a bottle of wine.

To return to Buffy (it’s sad I know, but it has been such a part of the last few years) I laughed in recognition when Giles opened the Magic Box and made his first sale. He was almst gibbering with delight; ‘Did you see that? I gave then stuff and they paid me money!!” I SO understood how he felt.