In Which I Journey Back To Bridgend, Chat About Helene Hanff and Reminisce On Charing Cross Bookshops In The Eighties

Hello there, Hope you're feeling well today.

Well much as this weekend was both enjoyable,emotional,sentimental and nostalgic it was time to leave for Wales. I started at Epping station which I rather like as it has a quaint village feel to it.

Excuse the fingers

I deliberately left at nine thirty in the morning to avoid the rush hour. A strategy which for once in my life actually worked as the journey to Victoria was fine. During this trip I finished the Helene Hanff omnibus which I'll chat about later.

On arrival at Victoria I had a quick early lunch at Subway (Breakfast melt with orange juice) and then made the short walk to the coach station. There was time so went to the toilets. I won't go graphic with the descriptions or provide pictures, but let me say this, You have to pay to use the facilities,but it was I who should have had danger money.

Anyway once done you joined the queue for your coach. People pushed in. The coach was late. You get irritated. Eventually it came. Five minutes late.

And we're off....eventually

The journey was OK aside from the man in front of me who wanted to use his seat like a transatlantic night fleet and kept pushing it back making me push to back towards him. Of course had he insisted I'd have given in. Given that he was a young tall skinhead with a hoodie. He was the cliche potential hoodlum. I was the guy in glasses.

The further West along the M4 we went the weather seemed to worsen, wetten and darken. This was Swindon.

Gloomy times

And across the Severn Bridge.

The Way To South Wales

Eventually I arrived in Bridgend. Wales: Cold,damp.and grey. Also known as home.And i was happy.

As previously mentioned the five books on the Helene Hanff omnibus were read, I enjoyed them all. The only suggestion I would give you is not to read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street or Q's Legacy before you read 84 Charing Cross Road as it will make no sense.

84 Charing Cross Road is of course the book Helene Hanff will always be remembered for. It's about the correspondence between Ms Hanff and various people linked to the bookseller Marks & Co, mainly Frank Doel. To me it comes under the category of a quiet little pleasure. It's a book which shows two decent people living their lives with the shared passion for books.I've always felt she was not just a writer but also a reader. And when I mean reader I mean that she could relate to us ordinary souls who just love reading. 84 Charing Cross Road is one of my favourite books of all time.

Though set in the fifties and sixties it reminded me of the Charing Cross bookshops I went to in the eighties. There was for example one, whose name I cannot recall, that sold left wing books which attracted me as it seemed exotic and different. I remember Books Etc. A chain which could also sell bargain books and Sportspages which was pioneering in the way it stocked a wide variety of sports books and fanzines which were popular in the eighties but seemed to die out in the age of the internet and podcasts in particular.

There was one I hated. Foyles. It struck me as large and impersonal. There was no love in the place. You'd buy a book and go to a small cell structure where inside was a lonely soul who probably would hate books for the rest of her (and it would always seemed to be a her) life.

I do wonder what Charing Cross would look like now if I returned. Would there be any bookshops there at all? Perhaps if when I next returned I should have a look one last time. The literary Upton Park of books.

Until the next time.