Shelves Of Memories

Flicking through a copy of the Halifax Courier of the 13th December 1913, as one does, my attention is captured by an advert from Greenwoods, the Halifax booksellers. It’s partly the design of the advert – the illustration and the typeface in finest art nouveau style. It’s partly the tag-line “Established 1890 – Therefore in three reigns, namely; Victoria the Good, Edward the Peacemaker, George the Waker-Up of England”, which makes me wonder how you would continue the sequence – “Edward the Abdicator, George The Smoker etc etc”. It is mainly, however, the flood of memories of being in the bookshop, now long gone, and the delights that lay in wait whenever you went in. The property is still there, so I know it wasn’t a particularly large shop, but my memory tells me it was vast – Halifax’s answer to Blackwell’s in Oxford or Foyles in London. But don’t disturb me, leave me be and let my browse those shelves full of memories that no trip down the Amazon could ever replicate.