Girl meets boy

I've already told you about my first love, the place that opened my eyes to the joys of bookshops, now it's time to write about my second.

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Galloway's (RIP), close to the seafront in Aberystwyth, west Wales, was the bookshop where I first came to appreciate the full extent of the independent offering and the benefits of getting to know your local bookseller.

And the reason I realised exactly how great booksellers can be is because a girl met a boy.

I wasn't that girl, but she is a good friend. And after they'd hit it off following a very random encounter my friend kindly volunteered to go and buy a book for me from our local indie, where the boy – affectionately known as the Galloway's Guy – could often be spotted manning the till. Obviously the girl's volunteering was entirely selfless and had nothing to do with wanting to see the boy again. Maybe.

I have no idea how the conversation at the till went, or what he thought of her choice of book (I do know she admitted it was for me), but more than ten years later they're still happily married, so I consider it a pretty successful bookshopping trip.

And the book? The flight from the enchanter, by Iris Murdoch.

At the time a very new to me author, I'd fallen in love with her writing and would randomly pop into the bookshop to buy another of her works whenever my first salary would allow. 

However as this was only my second ever bookshop I was still pretty nervous about making conversation with a bookseller, which meant I was very grateful to my friend for happening to start to date one, giving me the confidence to talk to him too. And as their relationship blossomed, there I was (probably being a bit of a pest) quizzing him about books and raving about my new love of Iris Murdoch.

Whether it was to shut me up, win points with the girl or simply because he was a dedicated bookseller I couldn't say, but at some point in our conversation the boy pointed out that instead of waiting for all of Iris' works to flow through the shop I could instead ask the bookshop to order them all and then buy a book at a time whenever my funds would allow. When the manager later confirmed this I was over the moon.

I still remember the first time I walked up to the back of the shop and looked through the hatch where customer orders were kept. There on the shelf was the near complete works of Iris Murdoch (as mentioned, I already owned a few), just waiting for me to buy them when the limited funds of my first ever salary would allow. As a young 20-something I'm sure I shouldn't've been quite so excited as I was, but having previously tried to buy a different – less prolific – author's works only for the publisher to redesign the covers half way through I couldn't help but bounce with delight.

Galloway's sadly closed a few years ago, but the bright, open shop spanning three floors lives on in many memories, the friendly booksellers often cross my path and my Iris Murdoch collection still has pride of place on my shelves.