Bookbuyer's
Bookend
The travelling 'circus descended last week on Eastbourne (we are of course referring to the annual Booksellers Conference) and a much improved affair it was, with a happy blend of _ straight entertainment, high-wire professionalism, and knockabout farce.
Friday, as usual, belonged to the booksellers themselves and matters of grave concern were reported on in private — though at least two publishers, David St John Thomas of David and Charles and Norman Franklin of Routledge, managed to find their way in by virtue of their bookshop holdings, and in any case all was reported later in last week's Bookseller. It was left once again to the excellent Book Tokens people to supply the light relief by telling delegates, as they have done these eight years past, that there had not been time to produce audited accounts.
On Friday evening the publishers began to arrive — as usual they far outnumbered the booksellers — and suddenly the empty bar was packed, and the conference on its way. Presidential addresses, Fraternal Greetings from Australia, Paperbacks in the Bookselling Economy, Working Parties on Technological Developments, Market Research and the Consumer — all followed in rapid succession and must have bewildered some of the older members present. (Bookbuyer will come back to the market research bit next week). Then, just as everyone thought the conference was finished, there was veteran Norman Lucas from Altrincham popping up on the platform to tell a surprised audience that this year the Spectator would have no grounds for awarding him an Oscar — as it did in 1973 — for the weekend's most depressing speech.
For that unusual honour, Bookbuyer had to single out the committee examining the supply of books to schools, who revealed that after nearly two years they had come up with no useful proposals to check the increasing incidence of direct buying by the new local authorities. Nor was the committee allowed to get away with it. Beard trembling and eyes ablaze, Hutchinson's Charles Clark rose majestically to deliver a blistering attack which threatened — though not for long — to puncture the thin veneer of conference brotherhood.
For all, that the Conference still had its lighter social moments. There was the extraordinary sight of Pan's Ralph Vernon-Hunt quoting — or rather misquoting from Henry IV Part 'i, and orf a later occasion being ticked off and driven to flight by Miss Thompson of the Bookseller. There was the disturbing sound of one of Britain's newer publishers wimpering at the locked door of a lady bookseller at four in the morning. And there was the forlorn prospect. of Heinemann's able managing director Charles Pick, eschewing the Saturday afternoon session in favour of a quiet snooze by the swimming pool, only to find himself suddenly surrounded by an earnest discussion group.
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