30 December 2004

So ends another year. It has been fairly uneventful for us. We had a good ten days in the south of France in August. I learnt a bit more German and French, but will have to work a lot harder to become proficient at either. The real difficulty I find is not so much in speaking these languages as in understanding what is said to one.

During this year we still sold books, all off the internet. Our website is still our most important outlet, but sales through ABE and Amazon continue to grow. Our printed catalogues are now a thing of the past. While I am aware that there are still some people out there who might want books but who do not have internet access, it is just not practical to produce catalogues for less than ten people, which is what most of the subjects were down to.

This week's update is a day late, mostly because I did no work over the holiday and by yesterday morning there was such a pile of emails to deal with that there was no time to see to the website. We have made a few changes. One is that I have decided in the interests of security not to store anyone's credit card details on my computer from now on. This means that every time you order you will have to supply your credit card details afresh over the secure ordering system. I know this can be a bit tedious, but it does make things safer. I notice that more and more online and telephone sellers do this, and putting the details in is becoming semi-automatic I find.

The second innovation is the Previous Editorials section of the website. I have long wanted to incorporate more links and pictures, and have now done so. I hope it makes it more interesting. Unfortunately I find that I have not kept some entries for which I still have pictures, and also that I have lost some pictures which could have illustrated extant entries. Never mind - it is all a bit of harmless self-indulgence on my part anyway. My children tell me that in writing these editorials I have unbeknownst to myself been producing a 'blog' all these years, long before most people caught on to the idea of these online diaries.

Well, a good year to you all. Keep reading!

10 November 2004

It looks as if the Anglican Communion is moving towards the option of having "alternative episcopal oversight" and "Third Province" arrangements so that the West African bishops can feel that they are not polluted in the eyes of God by being in any sort of communion with the American Anglicans who have consecrated practising homosexuals as bishops.

Now I always deplored the Flying Bishops option in England. It seemed to me that those Anglicans who, in the face of the considered mind of the Church, thought that their diocesan bishop could be tainted by allowing his ordaining hands to rest on the head of a woman, should either put up or have the courage of their convictions and join some other church. The idea of parishes opting out of the diocesan sacramental provision and only having their confirmations etc performed by bishops unsullied by the female contamination seemed to me perverse, especially in the light of a very early decision of the councils of the Church that the sacraments can in no way be invalidated by the unworthiness of the minister. A bit study of Early Church history would not come amiss among both the clergy and the laity.

However, looking at existing provision in the Anglican Church, one does see a bit of precedent for alternative oversight. Within communities and dioceses the Church of England does provide alternative pastoral arrangements (for example student, hospital and industrial chaplaincies) which to some extent sit outside diocesan arrangement.

In the Roman Catholic Church even more there is an ability to live with and even encourage a plurality of structures and attachments to the centre. At the highest level there are the various Eastern Rites which have their own churches, liturgies, rules of clerical celibacy and the like, all owing allegiance directly to the Pope wherever they are. There are the groups such as Opus Dei, which also have autonomy from local control. Not that I approve of these secretive pressure groups, but giving them a some autonomy has the merit of keeping in the fold people who might otherwise leave the Church and fall into schism.

Another example is Bishop Fernando Rifan, subject of an article in The Tablet of 30 October. Having been a schismatic he now has the Pope's approval for him and his Brazilian flock to celebrate the 1962 Tridentine Rite. Quite why this gives him leave to travel the world giving succour to other lovers of Latin is a matter for Roman Catholic politics which I don't understand, but he is at least, to use the vulgar saying, in the tent pissing out, rather than out of the tent pissing in.

So perhaps this is the way ahead in the Anglican Communion too. Let dissident groupings, be they West African dioceses or English anti-women parishes, have some kind of autonomy. They will wither in the end, and that end will come sooner the less they are made martyrs of.

8 September 2004

I hope you like the picture of Asmodeus. This figure, holding up a holy water stoup, is one of the extraordinary decorations in the church at Rennes-le-Chateau, the French village where at the end of the nineteenth century the parish priest, Father Saunier, mysteriously acquired enough money to re-order his church in a most peculiar way and to do several other building projects. As I explained in an earlier editorial some have claimed he found the treasure of the Templars. Whatever it was it was converted into some odd art and architecture.

Last Saturday we visited architecture of a rather different kind in the shape of a Saxon church in Essex. The church at Bradwell on Sea is built into the ruins of one of the Roman "forts of the Saxon Shore", a chain of defences meant to stop would-be illegal immigrants, the Angles and Saxons of the opposite European coast, from landing and destroying the country's traditional way of life. As we all know this attempt failed, and instead of speaking a modified form of Latin like the Portuguese and Spanish and French and Italians and Romanians do, the present inhabitants of Britain speak a Germanic tongue and drink beer rather than wine, like all barbarians.

The church at Bradwell isn't just built into the remains of a Roman fort, its walls are made up of the stones and bricks and tiles of that bit of Roman defence-work. Just a large barn really (and was used as such for a long time until rescued and restored to being a church), but it goes back to the 600s, having been built by St Cedd. Fourteen hundred years is quite a long time.

On the way there we passed the site of the Battle of Maldon where in 991 the Saxon leader Byrhtnoth was killed in an attempt to stop some later illegal immigrants, a party of raiding Vikings, from landing. His body, by the way, rests in Ely Cathedral just up the road from Cambridge, and the Anglo-Saxon poem which commemorates the battle still stirs the heart - to my mind more than Beowulf because it is about real history, not tall tales.

25 August 2004 - Delights of France

One of the things one notices driving around France is how sensible and practical their road system is. For a start every road, down to the smallest country lane, has a number, which is frequently displayed on sign boards and in all the maps and atlases. This makes navigation so much easier.

And another simple trick we could emulate. Every town and village and hamlet has its name on the side of the road at the boundary, and when you leave they repeat it, with a red diagonal line through it, in case you missed the name or forgot it.

But their best idea is the aire, in conception a bit like our motorway service area, but infinitely more varied and useful. Some aires consist of just a wooded area with lawns, tables and chairs, and a loo, and lots of parking. They are the ideal place to have a rest, a pee, or let small children have a run around. Some have all that, but with a small shop as well. And some have a petrol station attached. They seem to occur every 8 miles or so, which means that even in the height of summer there is always a chance of finding a quiet place to have a picnic. Of course the ones with shops and petrol get more crowded, but you can always just fill up and then travel on in the certainty that there will be a quieter one within a few minutes.

Another treat was the hardware. I spent a few minutes buying some door locks in a large DIY store in Carcassonne, and was so enchanted by the place that I suggested that I might spend the rest of my holiday there while the family went to see the tourist sites without me. This was unfortunately vetoed by my betters. They have no romance in their souls.

21 July 2004 - Our early days

It is just about twenty years since I gave up my paid employment and became a fulltime bookseller working for myself. We were called Chesterton Books for the first few years, because we live in the Chesterton area of Cambridge, but I got sick of being assumed to be an authority of GKC, fielding queries from all over the world. When I first lived in London the house opposite my bedroom had a plaque on it marking it as the place where Chesterton was born, but neither that nor the fact I have read quite a lot of his work were much help when it came to answering those queries. So we changed to Lund Theological Books, or Philip Lund Theological Bookseller, whichever happens to appeal to me at the time.

Those were the days when we sent out printed catalogues and the orders and enquries all came in by post. These days we just get one or two items of post for the business - often from people paying by cheque. That is something else that has changed - there is now only a very small (and presumably eccentric) minority of people who pay by anything other than credit card.

It has been fun. There was the time I picked up a lot of books at a police auction of books which had been stolen from libraries over a period of years by a poultry farm employee called Jevons. His house was stuffed to the ceilings with books. Thousands were able to be returned to their owners, but he did his best to obliterate all signs of previous ownership, so there were still many more which just had to be sold off. There were lots of people at the auction, but the BBC chose to interview me for their 9 o'clock national news bulletin. I got lots of comments from customers complaining that I don't look like what my voice over the phone had led them to expect. I was able to put out a catalogue of "New, Used and Stolen Books".

Not all auctions were as successful. I once found I had bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica with one volume missing. I learnt to do my research properly after than.

I learnt too how phrase my questions on the telephone. When taking orders it was often the case that I would answer queries about the availability of book and only at the end find out who was ordering. My standard question was "And who are you?" until the day when I asked this of a customer from Edinburgh. He took this to be my asking "How are you" (they pronounce things differently in Scotland) and proceeded to tell me about his health at some length.

Though we are not a shop, operating from a garage behind our house, over the years I have managed to meet quite a few customers from round the world. If you do find you are going to be in Cambridge and would like to put a face to the person, do get in touch beforehand. You won't be able to see the books (they live in piles and in boxes rather than in the sort of order you would find in a shop or a library) but you will get a welcome and a cup of coffee.

26 May 2004

Cataloguing a book last week I got so engrossed in it that I have withdrawn it from the catalogue and taken it away to read properly. It's Recollections of a Sussex Parson, by Edward Boys Ellman, 1815-1906.

He tells lots of lovely stories; here's one he heard in Dublin.

"He told me of a gentleman who, on finding several leaves torn out of a book, accused his maid of doing so. She remarked that she did not see why he should make such a fuss about it, that a few leaves could not make much difference, and that when she wanted some paper to light a fire she was very careful never to go to the same book a second time! On examination of the other books this was found unfortunately to be correct. "

Another of his anecdotes was told by Bishop Gilbert of Chichester of his wife. She tried to get into the Royal Academy, I suppose for the Summer Exhibition, before the official opening day, but the policeman guarding the entrance would not let her in. So she said to him she was the Bishop of Chichester's lady. "Even if you were the Bishop's wife you could not go in," was his reply.

Another of his stories concerns a clergyman inspecting his local school, found that when the children were reading the Bible and came to a word they could not pronounce, they would substitute the word "Jerusalem". When he found fault with them for it the said that was done at their local chapel. And that was the case. The next Sunday, coming from his afternoon service he stopped outside the chapel and heard the reader do so.

19 May 2004

I promised last week to show a picture of an almsbox we saw in a church recently. The box stands on an upright so that the faces are around five feet or so above the ground. It was meant for women who had been churched (and if you haven't come across that now obsolete occasional service, see the Book of Common Prayer) to put their offerings in. The unusual thing about this particular alms box is that each face has a different carving. If you had a girl you put it in the slot - the mouth - in the side where there is a depiction of a female (the lefthand side of my picture). If a boy, in the side with a picture of a man. If twins, then in their side, which you can just see as the righthand face of the photo. I cannot now remember what was on the fourth side of the box.

You may have noticed that I haven't said where the church is that this lovely artifact lives. But moveable furniture is so vulnerable to theft these days that I feel it would be irresponsible to publicise the place on the web.

5 May 2004

In a month or so it will be twenty years since I started selling books full time. I'd worked for Heffers, the Cambridge new book sellers for six years and for the last year of that had been running the secondhand business in my spare time. Heffers had started off quite fun, especially when I was just running the theology department, but over the years I got promoted to bigger sections of the shop and got involved more in the politics. It wasn't a well-managed business at all. The money came from the mailorder side of things and we in the shop felt neglected. Books we had ordered for stock would be constantly creamed off for mailorder customers, so often despite our hard work the shelves in the shop would lack the latest bestsellers that the locals wanted. I wasn't surprised when it was bought up by Blackwells of Oxford a few years ago.

So I was glad in the end to be leaving and setting off to create my own business. It was a case of buying up a few books, making catalogue cards, filing them, and shelving the books. I suppose we kept them in the house at first. After a bit we got some shelving and moved into one half of the double garage, which up till then had always doubled as a toolshed. The roof level at the far end was only just my height and the place was very dark. All the cataloguing was done in the house, so we carried books back and forth. When a catalogue was required we sorted out the relevant filing cards and Rosalind typed it all up before we photo-copied the catalogues and stapled them.

Some time in early 1985 we bought a computer. It cost £2000 and stored everything on floppy disks. A printer cost £600. And the software, for cataloging the books cost £1000. It was terrible. The chap who produced it was hopeless. Every time it went wrong or needed some modification he would produce a patch and I would either have to drive to Bath with the computer to have the program changed or he would send a floppy. But he would forget to modify his own version of the software. Next time he made a modification it would be to the old version he had on his computer, so we would find that the new correction worked, but that the previous fault had come back.

But the system did work, and in the end databases such as Access came along and I was able to produce my own tailor-made setup. It was all printed catalogues in those days. We would produce hard copy, send it off to a printer, and wait a week or so for the boxes of catalogues to come back. Then we had to pack two or three hundred catalogues - A5 booklets of some 40 pages - and send them off. For years we sent out a catalogue a fortnight and it was quite a grind.

That all ended around two years ago when the numbers of people requiring printed catalogues dwindled to almost single figures. The internet had triumphed.

14 April 2004

We had a really good experience on Holy Saturday. A young lady we know was being baptised and confirmed in Southwark Cathedral, and we were invited.

The service was the Liturgy for Holy Saturday, with Lighting of the New Fire, singing of the Exultet, the Readings, and all that goes in to make this one of the most moving services of the Christian Year. It was beautifully carried out. Slick can be a slightly pejorative word, but were I to use it in this context it would only be with the highest praise in mind. Everything just went off in a relaxed but highly organised manner, and was complete within two hours.

Considering that there were at least a dozen baptisms, and eighty-seven confirmations, that is quite astonishing. About two years ago we were invited to a confirmation in Brentwood, in a parish church, where there were also about 80 candidates. On that occasion the actual confirmations took two hours, in addition to the rest of the service. Southwark managed their 87 confirmations in seventeen minutes. It wasn't rushed or unseemly, just well organised. The difference between the two services was in method. In Brentwood the bishop sat and the candidates came up in twos and knelt before him. In Southwark the candidates came up and knelt at the communion rail a row at a time and the bishop walked along confirming them. This takes rather less time as you have seen from the figures above.

What was also lovely at Southwark was the congregation. There were highly decorative West African men and women in gorgeous costumes and a real mixture of other races. And lots of women clergy. Altogether a most memorable, holy and enjoyable experience.

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