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Behind the scenes at Castle Books

7th August 2023

If all the world’s a stage, then Castle Books is its green room. An intimate space full of second hand tomes and fascinating people, the shop is part of Totnes history.
It’s also facing an uncertain future, as Totnes Pulse has reported. The building in Castle Street is up for sale. I’ve been chatting to those involved to go behind the scenes at a true
Totnes institution.

Gill Bibby & John Horan

It was a complete shock,” said Francis Checkley, one of the directors of the community interest company which runs the shop. The owners have given them time to raise cash to buy the ground floor – but they need £150,000.00. If goodwill could be converted into cash, this sum would already be in the bank. On one morning I was there, I met Gill Bibby, who volunteers every Tuesday. She soon got chatting to a customer who was settling in for a long browse.

John Horan is a London barrister specialising in disability rights. “I’ve been visiting here for 25 years. I volunteer in the Oxfam bookshop in Kentish Town. But this is totally unlike a London bookshop – in this shop you can spend the afternoon,” he said. Gill agreed. “It’s got a good feeling, the right atmosphere. I had a gentleman once, a young fellow, I thought he’d gone but I found him lying on the floor reading poetry. He’d been there for an hour and a half. That’s what we like here.

A young woman comes in, delighted to have found Testament of Youth in the free box on the pavement. And she buys a book as well. John Horan agrees. “It’s extraordinary the stuff you can find here. I particularly like old books.” John is a stroke survivor and works in a busy Chambers in London. Totnes – and Castle Books – is a sanctuary. “It’s only in Totnes that I can relax and this bookshop plays a significant part.” He even offers to volunteer in here while he’s in town. An arm chair snuggled into a corner is an inviting perch, encouraging visitors to sit awhile.

Gill says: “ There are so many interesting types, and everyone’s got a story. They sit in that chair and talk. People love a chat!” People come back year after year from all over the country and the world. Anyone who’s been around Totnes for long enough knows how the bookshop began; In 1969 Belle Collard opened a vegetarian restaurant and in 1972 began selling books too. Belle’s daughter Jenny has told me more about how it all came about. “Mum was born Beryl Finn in 1919. (nickname Nin) At university she met John Collard and they married. She wrote articles about how to make clothes, equipment and furniture for her baby in wartime when there were shortages of everything- food, clothes, furniture etc. These were published in magazines and she was paid for them. In 1945 they moved to Flear Farm, South Devon from Norfolk. She started a pottery in the nearest village, East Allington In 1951 Some of her pottery was shown at the Festival of Britain exhibition in London.

Collards Cafe in 1969 with Belle Collard on the left. Image Courtesy: Castle Books

In the 1950’s It was difficult to make a living from farming, so Nin found different ways to bring money into the house. She started having paying guests at the farm. ( Me and my sister had to move out of our bedrooms and sleep in a hut in the garden!) She also bought a run-down cottage in East Allington for £200, repaired and repainted it and then sold it for a profit. She then had the money to buy another one and do the same again! She was good at thinking of solutions to problems. During the period from 1950-65 she started acting with amateur theatre groups in Kingsbridge and Dartington, and she worked with the Young Farmers, directing their plays and showing them how to do makeup, for theatre competitions they entered.

In 1966 Beryl and John bought Hendham House. They had decided they wanted to leave farming and they could make a living from having a guest house. The house needed a lot of repairs and some changes to make it ready for sleeping 20 people. She chose some very bright and strong colours for the walls, as she really loved colours. They worked on the house for a year and then moved into Hendham in 1967.

Sadly John and Belle split up, so in 1969 she opened the first vegetarian restaurant in Totnes in the Castle Street premises. She can be said to be one of the originators of the famous “alternative” Totnes way of life. “In the evening, when she finished cooking for all the guests at Hendham, she would start cooking again for the café in Totnes. And in the morning, after she had served breakfast to all the guests, she would load up her car with food, and deliver it to the café. She had two helpers at the café who made salads, served the food and washed up,” Jenny told me. “ By 1974 Nin decided this way of life was too exhausting and so she made some changes: she stopped having guests at Hendham and instead she made 6 student rooms and a kitchen upstairs for Dartington students, who were only there in term time and looked after themselves; at Castle Street, she changed the café into a bookshop which also served coffee and cake. Eventually, all 3 floors of the building were full of books for sale.

There are so many interesting types, and everyone’s got a story

Tha Barrister

Nin liked looking for books to buy because she met so many interesting people who asked her to come round to their houses and look at books they wanted to sell. She also liked meeting customers in the shop. People would come back time after time and she would get to know them and have long conversations. This was a long period of her life which was quite settled. As she got older, she stopped having so many books, and just kept them to the ground floor. She made the upstairs into a flat and rented it out. The other thing she loved to do in this part of her life was to travel, which she did by exchanging houses with other families, mostly in USA. She had lots of very good friends and she would invite them, or sometimes the family, to go with her. She was also a member and hostess of “The Monday Group”, which was a group of about 10 people who met together (on Mondays!) at her house to discuss all kinds of things important to them in their lives.

By 2012 Nin got a problem with her heart which meant she could not continue working at her shop, or driving. Considering she was 92, it was a great achievement to have worked so long. Friends offered to help, and so the shop was able to continue. She was at home quietly for the last year and a half of her life.

After Belle died, the building was sold, and the buyers of the building let the shop stay on a ten year lease, which has about two and a half years to run. Francis Checkley is delighted with the support the town has shown so far, with one man pledging £1000. So far the Crowdfunder has raised nearly £15,000 but realistically the town can’t find £150,000 from donations alone, so the team is now applying to the Government for a levelling up grant to buy the shop as a community asset and keep it going that way. “We may have an answer by September,” he said.

If this was a novel, this is the bit which would be written as a race against time. The owners may have to sell before the grant decision is made. Jenny hopes the team running the bookshop will be successful. “It’s such a lovely thing they do, the events for the community, support for poets and writers and the funding they’ve been able to give. They give time to their customers.

 

The crowdfunder link is here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-castle-books-community-bookshop

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David Delport-Barrett
David Delport-Barrett
1 year ago

Jenny wrote to me recently and mentioned you might be interested in
hearing about my first meeting with Belle.
 
As far as I can recall, after many years travelling abroad I had found time to spend a couple of weeks in my beloved Totnes where in
the late forties and fifties I grew up having been evacuated from London.

I think it must have been in the early eighties that I found myself wandering around the high street and the narrows as we knew it in those days. I had not arranged accommodation so I was on the look out for somewhere to stay. Anyway, I set off down Castle street and stopped to listen to very relaxing music which seemed to be emanating 
from a book shop. I peered inside and Belle welcomed me in. We spent an hour or so just chatting when I mentioned that I would have to continue on my way because I needed to find somewhere to stay.

At this point Belle simply said ” Oh, if you like, you would be very welcome to come over to Hendham, I have plenty of room ” !!!

How could I resist ?

There began a friendship which lasted the many years up to the time of her passing away. Naturally, the friendship later extended to include Jenny and David, Linda and their children.

Over all those years I must have stayed at Hendham many, many times, often when Belle was present and, sometimes “house sitting” when she was visiting the USA. At such times I looked after Belle’s cat Billie (or perhaps, he looked after me). Having dined together in the warmth of the kitchen I would go up to my lovely bedroom and luxuriate in the four poster which I imagine had been there from time immemorial.

Unforgettable.

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