We enter bookshops to broaden our minds. May they flourish and may we.  I was fourteen in 1981 when I opened the door of Lamp Bookshop in Leigh. All that was left of its previous incarnation, as a corner-shop was the tinkle bell, which gently announced my arrival. A forest of bookshelves and leaflets bristled and Dorothy appeared. She was a young woman in her twenties with a kind face and a Lancashire accent which sounded as if it could break into a lullaby. She ushered me past the counter into the back room. This was the first meeting of the Leigh chapter of ‘Who Cares’, which would become a major l charity for young people in care in Britain. Recently they changed their name to Become.

The meeting room was used by the The Welfare Association, women suffering after post natal child deaths, writers groups… we took writers into schools, and then the schools started to order their books from us….Lamp was a community bookshop”  Dorothy tells me from her new home in The Isle Of Man “it started in 1979 by a group of nine women which became five. We received funding from North West Arts Board and The Arts Council. There wasn’t a bookshop in Leigh..  A neighbour suggested Leigh Alternative Media Project. LAMP. And that was it ”. The name alone was enough to arouse suspicion. When we started Lamp my parents in law didn’t speak to me for six years Lemn!!”.

My local bookshop today. Pages of hackney.

Leigh was a mining town, a mill town, a working class town proud of its roots in socialism. At the time Margaret Thatcher was determined to break the labour strong hold and particularly the unions. The church had a powerful grip  and preachers told their congregations to “go into that bookshop and ask for the Bible. And we did stock the bible alongside books on eastern philosophy and all religions” says Dorothy with a smile in her voice. LAMP Community Bookshop was a threat.  Luddites, “the secret police” the far right and the church attacked the women. Dorothy’s paid work was with the council of churches.  “They said ‘if we don’t like the books there you will be sacked’”

No Alibis in Belfast

In the nineteen eighties there was a lot less scrutiny of the police.  In fact the reason  for the scrutiny in the present days is by no small means a result of what happened then.  “My post was opened by the secret police and my phone was tapped” she said. “They thought we were part of some kind of left wing conspiracy. The far right daubed our windows with Swastikas!  At the launch (of LAMP)  the head librarian from Leigh Library stood outside the window peering in.”   Dorothy went out to invite him in   “I wouldn’t be seen dead in there” he said and walked away. They were frightened of books” .

Flora (the owner) and me at the side of Seven Oaks Bookshop

A few years later  when I left care I moved to  Manchester. Grass Roots Bookshop was my saviour. Like Lamp it was run by women .    They sold magazines like Spare Rib and Black Beat International. They stocked books by the radical presses from around the country and the world.  Anti Apartheid posters adorned the walls alongside posters for  marches and pressure groups and leaflet stands which were our version of the internet. They sold books from Bogle L’Ouverture, a small black publisher  based  In London at Walter Rodney Bookshop. It  was run by Jessica and Eric Huntley. It too was an independent bookshop for the community.  Bogle L’Ouverture  published Linton Kwesi Johnson’s second book “Dread beat and Blood”.  Race Today were the first publishers of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s   Voices of The Living Dead.  Bogle L’Ouverture  published my book  Tender Fingers In A Clenched Fist. It was the most important moment in my development as a young  author.

None of the independent bookshops I’ve mentioned  are around anymore. But they are in the DNA of  Bookshops now   Throughout my career as man and author independent Bookshops have been vital to my development. They are are precious places.

This week is Independent Bookshop Week and my memoir is in the  non-fiction category of The Indie Book Awards. . The announcement is on June 25^th . I will be speaking in independent Bookshop Week on June 27^th with Grace Dent who will be speaking of her memoir called  Hungry. Dorothy shared a memory which stayed in mind from those early days of LAMP where we first met.  “We gave you a lift to the home  and Lesley stopped at the chippy . It was a dark night.  You were in the back seat  looking up through  the car window and you said ‘The stars go on forever. When I was a child I thought they were the top of a dome but they go on forever’. And there and then I knew”.   Bookshops are the loudest place on the high street,  filled with galaxies of testimony.  The workers are the guiding lights from stars.  May they go on forever.

today, 23rd June Dorothy wrote   “Thank you Lemn for writing about LAMP.   A bit more information.  We quickly found the corner shop too small and moved to a larger premises on the main street Bradshawgate.  As we became better known, so many people in Leigh took us into their hearts. There were still some who perhaps were wary of us, but we became part of the town, and larger Wigan eventually.  Also people from a wider area visited, Manchester, Warrington, Salford etc.

Sadly, in the time of Thatcher, the funding, for the services we offered was withdrawn.  The fixing of the pricing of books was withdrawn and supermarkets were then selling best sellers below what we had to pay publishers, as we could not get the same deals with publishers.  We  did become accepted by many churches, and the Vicar of Leigh, Alan Gawith was a great supported of ours. (See letter below).   Even my parents-in-law came into the new shop eventually!  We had support from the local press, especially Leigh Reporter.