A BOOKSHOP ON BOTANIC

This one's about a bookshop: a little, much-loved, second-hand bookstore that stood for 25 years at the bottom of Belfast's Botanic Avenue; 10 minutes from Queens University, 15 minutes from City Hall, and run by a band of extraordinary volunteers. 

The first time I passed it, the window was full of theological books, so I assumed it was some sort of religious shop, and went on my way. But this was 2001: I wasn't long back from 18 years in Zimbabwe and I badly needed a job, so when I saw an advertisement for a manager some months later, and discovered that the War on Want Bookshop was a charity bookstore with no religious bent, I applied for the job. The position was offered to me with such speed that I suspected no-one else had wanted it, which didn't bode well, but the moment I stepped through the door I knew I'd found my spiritual home. 

It had that slightly dilapidated Bohemian charm that I've always loved in old bookshops - the same could be said of many of the volunteers - and I fell instantly in love with the whole place. (Well, possibly not the toilet facilities and general lack of heating, but you can't have everything.) And the theological display I'd seen was  soon explained: it seemed each volunteer had their own section and they took it in turns to dress the window. So one would fill it with books on gardening and stately homes on Monday and on Tuesday someone else would replace these with the works of Lenin and Mao Tse Tung.

They also had very strong views on what should and shouldn't be sold.  Volunteer in charge of Religion, handing me a book, 'This here's the Catholic religion, Helen. We don't sell Catholic books.' Me, handing it back: 'You do now.' 

In fact, there were Protestants, Catholics, Quakers and Communists on the staff; there were Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists and Ba'hais; housewives, academics and the unemployed. There were ageing Hippies, students both local and foreign, at least one White Witch, and arty types of every sort. In short, it was a glorious, welcoming cultural stew. And I haven't even started on the customers...

The volunteers themselves were altogether the most principled, strong-minded and free-spirited lot you could hope to meet, and they had a shared passion for their work. As one of them said, it was a place full of her favourite sorts of people: readers and lunatics. And although I was foreign, emphatic, and prone to disaster, they treated me with such kindness that I will never be able to thank them enough. They gave me meals and loans and lifts and gifts and included me in their Christmas celebrations; they brought me home-made jam and bread and took me to hospital in emergencies; one of them even shared her car. In short, they treated me, and my children, like members of their own families. 

As for the customers, they were loyal to a fault, although occasionally hard to get rid of. Once, in desperation, after pleading unsuccessfully with the last straggler to go home, I switched out the lights. Whereupon he simply took his book to the window to take advantage of the street light. Books weren't always easy to get rid of either. I carted a pile round to the local dump one evening, only to find a beaming well-wisher on the doorstep the next morning. 'Just look what I found down at the dump' she said, and staggered in with a familiar-looking crate...

But most of our customers went out of their way to help. There was the Queen's academic who sold videos to his students and brought us the proceeds; the then Attorney General who gave his time and expertise to advising us on rare books; the owners of local bookshops who sent us surplus stock; and all the Belfast book lovers who supported us for so long. And then there was John Gamble, owner of Emerald Isle Books on the Antrim Road. He was a gentle, courteous man, a noted authority on Irish books and a generous supporter of War on Want. He came every couple of months to look over anything of particular interest that we'd put aside, and each of these sessions was a master class in book evaluation. He was also a wonderful fund of stories about the book trade.

The shop not only brought me many friends (and a lot of useful material for my first adult novel, 'The Traveller's Guide to Love', which features a second-hand bookshop) it also brought me my husband. We were married in 2015 and all the volunteers were invited to the wedding - each one bringing the only present we had asked for: a second hand book. Or books. Our gifts included a full set of Dickens, a Guinness World Records in which my husband's discovery of the fastest-rotating star was listed (some blighter found a faster one soon after, so the fame was fleeting) and a magnificent collection of novels. We have them all still, reminders of friends past and present.

So along with so many others I have reason to be forever grateful for the part played in my life by the War on Want Bookshop, and to mourn the fact that it is no longer there. After I retired in 2015, the exhausting, poorly-paid, but always satisfying task of running the place passed into the expert care

of my dear friend and colleague, Rosana

Helen & Rosana

Trainor, and in the fullness of time War on Want became Self Help Africa. But in June this year it closed, along with all the other Self Help Africa shops in Northern Ireland. It happened almost overnight, with remarkably little explanation, and the distress caused to both staff and customers has been considerable. But our volunteers were never less than resilient (we threw a final party at the end of July at which the oldest merry-maker was in her nineties) and I hope that every single person who ever worked for War on Want/Self Help Africa will at least look back on their volunteering days with as much affection and gratitude as I do.

This is for them all, but especially Rosana, the Captain who went down, so to speak, with her ship...