ABOUT SATURDAY BOOKS

Our shop, our people and the work we love

We love what we do

Our mission is to revitalise reading – for the activity of reading to be seen in a new light.

Our working process

Work begins at nine. The first item to be dealt with is the online sales.

About our shop

First thing to say – it’s vast. It is a warehouse-like expanse (though far more cosy).

The whole three-storey building, called Lester Place, was originally three separate dwellings, for the rich Victorians of Dudley. In the 1930s the ground floor of two of these town houses was scooped out to make way for – a warehouse to stock farm produce, mainly potatoes, Matthew Southall’s connection with a mid-Worcestershire grower. That left a first floor for offices for the business, and a second floor – empty.

In the sixties an accountant took it over. Saxons moved to their purpose-built accommodation by Top Church, leaving the area nicely partitioned, very suitable for book-rooms. In the long period before I took it over, in 2014, part had been used as a flat. In 2022 we were visited by a retired primary school teacher. He and two mates (sleeping in a bed and a bunk) had occupied the place in the late 1960s. He told me on Friday evenings they would draw a line on a map, out from the centre of Dudley, and the pubs they encountered were their entertainment for the evening!

There was a lot to do in 2014. For two years before, my wife and I had run a small shop round the corner, books and gifts. Moving to larger premises as the used books side started to grow, was the obvious thing. I didn’t realise quite what I had taken on. At street level, the former music shop was secured by unsightly metalwork. Above, the unending corridors of the top floor were dark and gloomy, the natural light barred by boarding over the windows. Where glass was not covered, there was breakage and rotting-away of frames. There was electricity up there, but all other services had been disconnected. The floor had not known a hoover for decades. It was not a place to sit and have your lunch.

Bit by bit, the walls were repainted, the windows repaired, the boarding stripped away till the whole top floor became suffused with natural light. Room by room, the shelves went up and the books followed. Books came from far and wide but mostly near, money slapped down and deals done, boxes into a small van and transported to Dudley, to be listed, shelved and then purchased by a visitor or sent across the world, discovered after years of patient shelf-life. Meanwhile, through employees, generally young, the beauty of the building began to show through. There was paint, carpet, artefacts and finally pictures as the end room transformed into a gallery and new life. Lester Place, it seems, cannot be contained. It is organic, always pushing up fresh growth. Whenever it appears to have achieved stasis, there is germination afoot somewhere: whole sub-collections are re-positioned, the rooms re-purposed. The progress continues.

Our team

So many people, over time, have brought about the present moment. Notable among them have been Jack Bowater, Ronaldo Hare, Rachael Blount, Erica Wood and Claire Tedstone.

Jack Bowater

Ronaldo Hare

Erica Wood

Claire Tedstone

Jack arrived in the shop in the summer of 2018 having just finished a Chemistry degree at Nottingham University. After first buying quantities of philosophy and classical literature he offered to work. He brought both practicality and vision; he has a skillset that comprises computer technology, spatial awareness and the ability to use just about any tool he picked up. Back then, I thought the second floor was no-go for visitors – too murky, dirty and drab, suitable only for storage. Jack however relishes the impossible and went to work with paintbrush, electric drill and endless planking. Over four years he moved the place forward. Whenever he reappears now a few jobs get done, and he is content to receive the work of great thinkers, in tatty copies, in return.

Ronaldo approached us at the end of 2018 – he was actually eighteen a the time – to ask if there were events that he could help us to organise. In fact he took over the whole running of what was to become the present Poetry Breakfast, recruiting performance poets through social media expertise, through visiting large-scale poetry events at Birmingham Town Hall and through professionally surveying the audiences to find out what they most wished for in the presentation. Ronaldo has taken his marketing skills since those times, in the bookshop’s Reading Room, The Old Glasshouse and The Court House, to his own property business, but he remains in touch – an instigator of culture and true friend of the bookshop.

Rachael had an Arts degree from far away Falmouth, had returned home to Tipton to do various jobs before coming to us in 2020. At the time I had bought a magnificent and vast collection of sci-fi; she saw the mystery of the building she worked in, and began to adapt it accordingly, and began the work of adornment. She was also a practised online seller and opened up new markets. Her business sense was unwavering. Not surprisingly we could not keep her for more than 15 months; she went to work for Virgin Media.

Erica took over the work Rachael had begun: the development of the Children’s Section. She has an eye for what appeals to younger readers; she also has a great way with customers young and old. Her special strength is her problem-solving. Not only how to mend the ceiling at the top of the stairs (two brooms and great lengths of Gorilla tape) but also the preparations needed for distinguished visitors, or the path our commerce should take. When parties have been organised (book launches, opening of new rooms) Erica has always brought a calm reassurance to the operation. May she continue to thrive.

Claire Tedstone became involved with the bookshop early in March 2022. Her work had brought her into contact with local Middle-Eastern background artists, and the bookshop became venue for production of an ornate banner, that would lead a procession celebrating Nawruz, a Persian-origin festivity marking the spring equinox. The procession, to Priory Park, took place on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, and was attended by hundreds.

SATURDAY BOOKS – SHOP AND GALLERY

We’re much more than just a bookshop

We’re a part of the local arts community

2012
FOUNDING YEAR
9250
BOOKS IN STOCK
61
TOWER STREET, DUDLEY
3
FLOORS
12
ROOMS OF BOOKS & ART
50
EVENTS HELD SO FAR

We love what we do

Our mission is to revitalise reading – for the activity of reading to be seen in a new light.

We do this through trade. Those who have books to sell receive a realistic sum. They are shareholders in the enterprise, in the same way as our workers and customers.

Some collections come straight to our door; others I have to go out and seek. I’m often asked, where do all these books come from? The answer is, I’m doing deals all the time. If a book is respected, hasn’t had 100,000 copies printed (in which case it’s the territory of big warehouse sellers as its value is likely to be very low) and its condition is good, then I will try to buy it.

We aim to become main stockists of regional authors. That is to say, both on website and in the shop’s street-level Entry Room, you will find these writers’ work, placed alphabetically, ready for sale. If ordered online or by phone, the books can either be collected or sent via a carrier.

‘Local Authors’ is our special function. Hosting a monthly Poetry Breakfast we are in touch with many creatives. We think highly of their work and want it to reach a wider readership. The (often) local setting amplifies a sense of community and the self within that community. Further, we believe, in the case of poetry, the reading of work that has been performed can only deepen the experience of the work. Reading is a means to internalise the ‘voices’ of others, and we are better for their presence.

Our work process

Work begins at nine. The first item to be dealt with is the online sales.

Searching the shelves can be disheartening, to put it mildly, but at the time of writing we retain a five-star rating from Abebooks, our principal selling platform.

After checking bank accounts and having a first view of email there is coffee at 11.00. Those present go over the work ahead and then disperse, to list books, to maintain the stock and to open up the shop down below.

Those working above are scarcely aware of the drift of customers along the landings, so absorbed are we in our functions. But conversation is always irresistible and the opportunity to discuss literature or to tell ‘our story’ is rarely bypassed. So the day goes on till three when, unless it is a Thursday or a Saturday, the shop closes and the basic work of parcel-wrapping and washing up goes on till departure at five.

That is the ‘day’ in the bookshop. It can be hard on the back, when lifting. The shop contains distant rooms that can be cold in winter. It is an ancient building so there is always something to be repaired. When you get home you find you’re tired, and can’t remember what you did all that time. The next morning though, for all that the place is cold, the winter sun may be streaming through the east-facing windows of the second floor. You feel like doing it all over again.