'A maze of books' - Inside Morecambe's Old Pier Bookshop - video Dailymotion

Lancaster Guardian

Meet the owner of Morecambe's oldest - and only - bookshop, which attracts book lovers from far and wide.   Tony Vettesse opened The Old Pier Bookshop in 1990, and is now crammed floor to ceiling with books including many over 50 years old.   In the video, Tony shares how he always dreamed of owning a bookshop, and that it now feels like his shop is a living being.   VIDEO FILMED AND EDITED BY LUCINDA HERBERT  PHOTOS BY LUCINDA HERBERT

Transcript

00:00We've had bookshops in the past in Morecambe. I'm the longest lasting and at the moment the

00:06only bookshop in Morecambe which is a bit sad. The usual comment and I've had it twice today is

00:12oh what an Aladdin's cave or eee what a lot of books. The best one is my god what a minefield.

00:19Most of the books in here are 50 years plus. There was nothing planned it's just progressed

00:29on its own. Sometimes I feel as if it's a living being and I'm just feeding it and

00:34looking after that it's developed its own personality almost. You can get lost go down

00:42one of these aisles and the sound disappears as well from outside like snow on a winter's day

00:48it's just nice and quiet. Growing up as a child and as a young adult the one thing I wanted to have

00:55was a bookshop that was my lifetime's ambition and dream. I never thought I'd get the chance to

01:01realize it but I have. Well it was a cafe to begin with it was the family cafe and fish and chip shop.

01:08About 1990 I decided to put some shelves in because I had far too many books at home and by the end of

01:16the first week the two shelves had gone the table had gone they'd put a bookcase in place by the end

01:21of the month. There were four more bookcases by the end of the year my mum just gave me the keys and

01:27said there you go do what you want so I turned the cafe in the fish and chip shop into a bookshop.

01:33I came from an almost illiterate household I went to school didn't even know what a book was and a

01:40wonderful teacher called Mrs Milner this is back in the early 60s saw me at the back of the class

01:46strolled down to the class picked me up and said you're coming with me and I was scared stiff and

01:52she sat me on her knee and she said this is a book and I'm going to tell you a story and it began there.

01:59Our busiest sections are the science fiction and fantasy section and the crime section murder mystery

02:05detective thrillers. Nothing is labelled the sections expand and contract sometimes on a daily basis

02:15so book sections will grow and shrink depends what books come in and what I sell.

02:23Bug bears. I have a list I have a little list people that misplace things they don't do it

02:30aggressively it's nothing it's just absent-mindedness they'll find a book then they'll find another one

02:35take that out change mind and put that in the other book's place. We do have odd people that come in

02:41as well nothing nasty just unusual people my favourite was last year a lady that stood outside

02:49the front doors of the shop which were wide open at the time the shop was full of customers

02:54and she started doing an incantation to cast out evil spirits before she walked into the shop she was

03:00lovely. An old dog that I had once used to stand in the corner just down the side from where we are now and

03:08stared up at a bookcase which hides a window and she'd sit there for the ages and occasionally just wag a tail

03:14staring at the bookcase.

'A maze of books' - Inside Morecambe's Old Pier Bookshop

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