Now I know how easy it is to go online and order up a book, but it’s not the same as wandering past shelves of the things, picking one down at random and weighing up which of the three on a particular subject is what you want.
And I was in our own book shop recently buying not browsing and reflecting that it is 34 years since Chorlton Bookshop opened its doors.
So to mark that event I have decided to focus this month on their story which has been written by them. But like all good history stories this one strays out to include something about the neighbouring shops and fastens us back in the 1980s.
Each shop came complete with a large flat upstairs, designed to encourage shop-keepers to 'live in'.
They also came with restrictive covenants, forbidding the sale of alcohol or hot food.
According to a map of the area from 1905, these particular shops then belonged to Miss Gertrude Cartledge, listed as a fancy draper, and a furrniture broker called Frank Johnson.
By coincidence, another Johnson family took the shop over in May 1983. Living in Sale, Ceri Johnson was working as a nurse, Alan Johnson as a teacher at Wilbraham High (now Chorlton High).
They had the idea of opening a local bookshop, partly as a form of long-term retirement plan. From working in the area, Alan had noted that Chorlton didn't have its own bookshop at the time. So they put the idea of opening one to their daughter Vicky, who had recently left school and started working at Inprint bookshop in Sale precinct.
The family recall sitting on the wall across the road from the shop, which then bordered a car park, and watching pedestrians and traffic passing by, to get the measure of the location and its potential.
At that point in time, the shop had just been vacated by Chapman's Tobacconists. This posed very particular problems in terms of shopfitting.
Not only did it require the usual redecorating and rewiring, but the vast array of wooden shelving for tobacco brands had to be removed, and the walls and ceiling also needed a very thorough repaint to remove dark brown nicotine stains. An ashtray was found screwed to the wall inside the toilet, too.
There was a trap-door leading down to the cellar behind the counter, but it was no use so was sealed up. Chapman's had a functioning range operating in the cellar, too. They had left behind a huge old-fashioned push-button till, but it proved to be an unwieldy beast and was soon replaced.
Some clues to the age of the shop still remain today, though. A shed in the back yard contains traces of the original gas lamps, and a copper wash boiler.)
For the record, back when the shop first opened, our neighbours on the row were: Coupe's furniture shop (now Croma); a newsagents (and still is, though with different owners); Elizabeth's, a haberdashery and wool shop run by the elderly Cameron sisters (with fittings like the set of a Dickens adaptation, which were eventually bought, appropriately enough, by Granada - the shop itself has recently become an off-licence);
Arison's hair salon (which opened not long before the bookshop, and is still going strong); a pet shop (now Fred's); a baker's (now Junipers); a chip shop, owned by local cricketer Geoff 'Noddy' Pullar (which is now Yeo Pan); a crockery and hardware store (whose owner Hazel moved into house removals, and is still currently in situ); Chorlton Food Mart (now Chorlton Off-Licence); and a junk / antique shop (now Mahbub)."*
Pictures; Wilbraham Road, circa 1900, from the Lloyd collection, all remaining pictures courtesy of Chorlton Bookshop
* Andy from Chorlton Bookshop
