February 17, 2025 • 28 mins
The story of Kett's Books reveals how a community rallied to keep a beloved local bookshop in their town. Through the values of collaboration and empathy, the bookshop has become a thriving center for readers and volunteers alike, bridging the gap between literature and community.
• Discussion of the closure of the original local bookshop
• Formation of a community-led initiative to open Ketz Books
• Tracy's background as a story strategist and its relevance to bookselling
• The significance of the name Ketz Books and its historical roots
• Community involvement in curating the bookshop's offerings
• Overview of a typical day at the bookshop with volunteer engagement
• Insights into Wyndham's historical context and attractions
• Recommendations for local visitors on exploring Wyndham's literary scene
The Kings of London, William Shaw
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week, I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
(00:33):
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
You're listening to episode 283.
What do you do when you discoveryour local bookshop is closing
on Christmas Eve?
Well, in this case, strangersgot together in a pub in Wyndham
(00:54):
, UK, to explore whether a groupof volunteers could actually
run a bookshop.
They agreed that where theylacked experience, they had
goodwill and enthusiasm and, asit turned out, quite a lot of
determination.
In only eight weeks they'dformed the Friends Group and
raised funding, formed a companywith their name and logo and
(01:15):
had the keys to their communitybookshop.
I'm excited to chat with TracyKenney, Managing Director of
Ketz Books.
Hi, Tracy, and welcome to theshow.
It's great to have you here.
It's really good to be here.
Thank you.
Here I am beginning my day andit's kind of the end of your
workday, so how are you feeling?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm good, Thank you.
We kind of get to the end ofthe day and of course you want
to go home, but then you don'twant to go home.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Because it's just great working in a bookshop.
Now, before we get into thestory of Ket's books.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'd like to learn about you and your work as a
story strategist.
Ah well that.
So it was a short time, but itdid serve me really well in
coming into bookselling.
So I had worked in a largecompany for a very long time,
getting an idea about allaspects of the company, and when
we needed to communicatesomething, it was a large
financial company.
Just telling people this iswhat you need to know didn't
(02:09):
really go down very well, butwhen we used an anecdote to
express why it was important andtalked about the human impact,
people seemed to relate to it.
They saw themselves in thesituation.
They thought about what theywould do faced with the same
problem, and so they were reallyengaged with it.
And then when we got to thesolution they were in.
There was so much more buy-inwhen you told things like that.
(02:33):
So toward the end of my time inthe big company, they were going
through a rebrand.
They were changing their namecompletely, and I had found out
about this brand storytellingthing and had spent quite a lot
of time researching it.
So they took me into the mostsenior people's offices and
asked me to help them form theirspeeches about why they
(02:57):
believed in the change.
So they were amused andtolerant.
They weren't convinced.
And so I sat down with them andI said, yeah, we'll talk about
that in a minute.
So what do you do at theweekend?
And they thought that was adistraction.
(03:18):
But then they would starttelling me stories about, for
instance, how they would go outon a kayak with their young
children.
And I sort of prompted it andI'd say, surely that's dangerous
.
And they would say, but I knowmy equipment and I know my
limits and I know the route andI know I can handle it and the
benefits are worth the risk.
(03:39):
And so they were forming theirown story about how they were
taking the company into a newarea.
And so when they finishedtalking I said, well, there's
your speech.
And they were absolutelyflabbergasted.
But I did it three times withthese senior guys.
And then they went to theBarbican, a respected theater in
(03:59):
London, and gave a presentationto several hundred people and
they just told these storieseach of them, and they all got
standing ovations.
So that kind of work that Iwent on to do when I left the
company, to help people locatethe stories that they already
had in themselves, to explainthe other things that they
wanted to convince people of.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing quite like the power of
storytelling.
As I've said many times beforeon this podcast, I believe that
through reading well-writtenfiction we develop empathy for
others and, let's face it, weneed more of that these days and
I'm guessing the work you didpreviously as a story strategist
helps with book selling andalso with building community
(04:42):
within your volunteers withbuilding community within your
volunteers.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, yes, I mean, I really use it in terms of
anticipating the customerexperience and because we're a
not-for-profit bookshop, we're asocial enterprise, I am a
bookseller, but I don't have tobe the bookseller, so we extend
that experience to lots ofpeople who also work in the shop
.
Who I mean?
Who doesn't want to work in abookshop?
So we have lots of reallycapable, experienced people who
(05:13):
are able to talk to thecustomers, share their life
experience and share the storiesthat they've enjoyed and share
that community with them, thatthey've enjoyed and share that
community with them.
So I've been able to kind of inreal life, offer a new story
for those people so they canstep into that role of
bookseller and have themeaningful experience that we,
so many of us, get to enjoy, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yes, it absolutely does.
Can you share the history ofKet's Books, where the name
derives and how you becameinvolved with the bookshop?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Okay, so Wyndham has always had a bookshop, as long
as any of my oldest customerscan remember.
I keep asking them.
And in 2013, the previousbookshop was going to close on
Christmas Eve and never openagain.
And so my colleague, Ray Rumsby, knew about community
businesses and he said this is atown that needs to have a
(06:08):
bookshop.
So he and I called a meeting ina pub and a load of strangers
got together and we all said wecan run a bookshop, it can't be
that difficult.
And so we then spent the next11 years figuring out how
difficult it is.
And so, from when we met in thepub as a group of strangers in
the middle of September 2013, wehad formed a company registered
(06:33):
at Companies House, we had ourfunding, we had our branding, we
had the keys to the business bythe 1st of February Wow, that's
organization and dedication.
Yeah.
So it was a whirlwind and wehad all these volunteers who
were willing to come in andlearn to run a bookshop with us.
Everyone brought differentskills or experience or
(06:53):
enthusiasm.
We have lots of volunteers whoactually don't work in the shop
but they bring other skills thatthey're on hand behind the
scenes.
So we needed a name for theshop, and one of those behind
the scenes volunteers did aworkshop with us, kind of to
identify our brand where we weregoing to sit on several
continuums, like are we going tobe really stuffy or are we
going to be really relaxed, andthose sorts of lines.
(07:15):
So he knew what our name wasgoing to be, where we were going
, but he helped us to to come upwith that we needed to be
called Kett's books, becauseRobert Kett is the most famous
son of Wyndham.
In 1549, the government, whichwas led at the time by Edward VI
, decided to enclose the commonlands where people were grazing
(07:40):
their sheep and were farming,and this meant that they didn't
have access to food.
So that was the law.
The fences went up and it was areally big problem.
So the local farmers went to alandowner someone who was of a
better class and explained thesituation, and that was Robert
(08:00):
Kett, and he said yes, you'reright, this is unjust.
The people of Wyndham need tohave their community lands and
so, long story short, they metat an oak tree just up the road
from here.
It's still there, it's calledKett's Oak, and they marched on
Norwich, which is our nearestcity, eight miles up the road.
(08:22):
They defeated the King's army.
They went on to London and theydidn't win that one, but he
formed an army of 16,000 peoplewho were camped out in Norwich,
and so they had their own systemof discipline, their own system
of feeding everyone.
It was a really sophisticatedmini society that was there for
(08:42):
quite a while while they werepreparing these battles, and he
fought for the protection of thecommunity benefit, the things
that were good for the people.
So when we needed to name ourcommunity bookshop, we realized
that naming it after someonewhose values we shared and who
wanted to save something thatwas really vital to the
(09:04):
community was the best way to go.
So we called it Ket's Books.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
What a fabulous story and it's fascinating how his
values and the bookshop's valuesline up.
Ket's Books.
What a fabulous story and it'sfascinating how his values and
the bookshop's values line up.
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, it really is.
But also I think it's one ofthe best things anyone can do
when naming their business toname it after something that
everyone feels ownership of inthe town.
So, particularly since we're acommunity bookshop for even
people who haven't been in herefeel like they own a little bit
of the cat story and they get itand they know what it's about
and they feel like with any ofthe other historical assets in
(09:39):
the town.
This is part of what belongs tothem.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And what happened to cats?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Robert Kett was hung at Norwich Castle in December
1549.
So the story doesn't have areally happy ending.
And his brother, william, washung from the abbey here in
Wyndham.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, that's not great, butthey put their lives on the line
.
They fought the good fight.
They fought the good fight andif you go back and look at what
(10:04):
they actually asked for, itcovers quite a lot of ground.
It asks for things like commonmeasurements when people are
weighing out for trade to have acommon system of measurement.
So, yeah, they were reallygreat leaders and we're very,
very happy and fortunate to beable to name our business after
them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And it's something to be proud of.
Just before we go any further,I do want to explain.
Wyndham is actually speltcapital W-Y-M-O-N-D-H-A-M, but
it's pronounced Wyndham.
It's definitely an English wordthat I had to hear pronunciated
correctly, because otherwise Ijust knew I was going to say it
incorrectly.
It is.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yes, it's pronounced Wyndham.
There are two Wyndhams in theUK.
This is the Wyndham in Norfolk,which is just south of Norwich
just south of Norwich, so ham atthe end.
You've got ham places all overthe US, like Birmingham, and so
I believe that's about being ahamlet.
I don't know why the middlesyllable got dropped, but
(11:06):
Norfolk is full of these placesthat identify the locals or the
visitors by their understandingof the pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
When it comes to names that I'm not too sure how
to pronounce, I Google how topronounce and the name of the
town or someone's name.
It's the only way I canmemorize pronunciation.
Yeah, can you share with us howthe bookshop is curated and by
whom it's curated?
Do you curate the store basedon tourism Although, after
(11:36):
hearing you speak, I'm guessingit has a lot to do with your
community of readers but at thesame time, you still have to
make money.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, every business does that, don't they?
They have to sell what theirmarket is going to want to read.
So we have a lot of generalinterest.
We have an awful lot of naturalhistory.
Books about trees go really,really well.
We have a strong fictionsection and a really strong
children's section About thetrees.
We have two trees in our shop.
(12:04):
They're not live trees but thetrunks are real.
We actually moved, I have tosay.
We were in a tiny, tiny littlecourtyard location for 10 years,
and then that last year wemoved onto the high street in a
20 room building.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Wow, that's a lot of space, I know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And that's because we had outgrown the other and we
needed to make room for ourvolunteers to all be able to
live up to their potential andto be able to deliver to the
community what we knew we coulddo.
So I went to the public ourvolunteers, our customers, we
have friends of the shop and Isaid, look, this is what we've
(12:42):
done, this is what we could do.
We need your backing and theybacked us and we have been here
in this new beautiful buildinghere.
That's another story.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Do you use up all 20 rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
No, no, it was great fun while they were vacant
though.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yes, I bet it was wonderful having all that space
to unpack boxes of books.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Honestly, it was just so much fun after having been
in a kind of 20 foot longbuilding for 10 years and those
wheelie step things that you getin bookshops and libraries are
called a kick step.
That was basically my desk formost of the 10 years.
I sat on one of those with mylaptop on my knees and then for
about six months I had my choiceof 20 rooms to knock around in.
So now we have tenants, peoplewho share our values, who are
running other businesses, like achildren's mental health
(13:36):
service is here in our building.
So it's really terrific becausethe benefit that our customers
and our volunteers get fromtalking to each other our
tenants are beginning to get byworking together with each other
.
So it's a kind of businesscommunity in addition to the
bookshop community.
So that's really reallywonderful.
Um, so the curation we sell whatour customers want to read.
(14:02):
We are guided by what our umvolunteers discover as well.
They're in other bookshopslistening to the radio, whatever
.
We have some pretty clearcriteria and we do love an
independent press, but it needsto be the right independent
press.
We do lean into working withthe big publishers like penguin,
(14:22):
faber, bloomsbury, cachette,because they have the editorial
system.
So we know there's a prettygood chance that it's going to
be a well-written book,well-edited, well-presented and
a decent physical product.
But we do talk to people abouttheir local books, particularly
(14:43):
if they are a customer or ifthey shop in Wyndham.
If they've written a book thenwe're interested in talking to
them.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, you have some fabulous small and medium
presses in the UK and Ireland.
One recently that I'vediscovered is Heloise Press,
founded by Ina Marti, and one oftheir books, abandonment, was
one of my favourite books of2024.
I thought it was fabulous.
And then you also have Sort ofBooks, another independent
(15:10):
publishing venture by MarkEllingham and Natania Jantz
Natania has actually been on theshow.
They published the Seven Moonsof Mali Almeida by Sheyhan
Karuna Talaka, and that won the2022 Booker Prize.
So I mean we have somefantastic small and medium
presses globally.
That's just two that I canthink of off the top of my head.
(15:31):
Tell me about what a typicalday at the bookshop looks like
for you and your volunteercommunity.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Okay, so we are open 9.30 to 5.
And is that seven days a week?
There's six at the moment, butI'm working on seven.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
We have People on Arota.
They know what their day is,they know who they're likely to
be working with.
So the front of shop team comein at 9.15.
They are responsible forlooking after the shop floor,
opening boxes, putting books onthe shelves, answering the phone
, handling customer queries.
(16:06):
Then we have a back room, whichis still a treat, and in the
back room we have other peoplewho will be doing work.
And because it's still a bigbuilding and we do have lots of
work to do, we have a whole newkind of population of volunteers
who would never have wantedanything to do with talking to
customers about books, butthey're really happy to come in
(16:28):
and paint, and so we're able toreach a whole new section of the
community who are getting thebenefit of being part of us.
So we've got kind of thesethree groups of people working
at any given time.
But what we do is we just havepeople start off just answering
the phone, looking after thebooks, learning to run the till,
but then, as we find out whatthey're good at, we give them
(16:51):
other things to do.
So everybody has kind ofanother job that they do when
they're not busy with thecustomers.
I was really influenced bymarcus buckingham and the work
he did around strengths a fewyears ago, and I think that
that's the only way to managepeople is to find out what makes
them feel strong.
So we, we give them the basicsand then when I realize you're
(17:13):
really good at this, we givethem that to do as a job and
then they love doing that.
The thing that's differentabout KETS books I mean
bookshops all have people whowant to be there, but in KETS
books in particular, in acommunity bookshop, people are
all there because they reallybelieve in it and they can't
wait to come in.
And lots of my people are inmore than once a week because
(17:35):
they just love it here andthey're not looking at the clock
.
They want to be here.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
When we look at the current state or the turmoil of
the world, I think libraries andbookshops are still safe places
for people to gather and haveconversations.
Safe places for people togather and have conversations.
When I research the history ofbookshops, in particular,
radical bookshops around theworld although the UK has a lot
more than the US does at themoment, radical bookshops seem
(18:04):
to be places where, even now,conversations can take place,
you can share different pointsof view without hostility and
aggression, and that's probablyone of the main reasons I
started this podcast.
I wanted to support that safespace for conversations, for
education, for acknowledgementof differences, and that's vital
(18:25):
at this time.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yes, it really is.
Yeah, and one of my favoritethings is when customers start
talking to each other.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Oh, yes, that's wonderful.
I've worked in a bookshopmyself and, oh my goodness, that
just used to make my heart sing.
And that's what community andbuilding relationships is all
about.
Yeah, Tracy, I read thatWyndham is a market town in
South Norfolk.
What defines a market town, atown and a village in the UK?
Oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So a village, I would say, is going to have houses in
the hundreds, but the housesaren't spread out here.
In a particularly rural villagemight be, but properties are a
lot smaller here.
People only have really as muchgarden as they will actually
(19:17):
use.
So in the US people might havea lot of land but they can't use
all of it, can they?
For instance, my garden isabout, which means yard is about
50 feet long by about 30 feetwide, and that's perfectly fine
for my family of four.
But that also means that myneighbours are close.
So if you have a hundred housesof that proportion, it's only
(19:43):
going to cover a not very bigarea.
That's your village.
Villages also have a lot ofcharming buildings, so thatched
roofs, exposed beams, that kindof thing.
Town is going to be anythingbigger than that, which is going
to have services like schools,libraries, post office, a lot
more shops.
In a village you're going tohave, if you're lucky, a pub, a
(20:05):
library and a primary school.
But a town is going to probablyhave a high school and so on.
And then I'm going to saycities, apparently, officially,
a city has to have a cathedral.
You could have a place, a town,with a population in the
hundreds of thousands.
But if it doesn't have acathedral then it's not
designated a city.
So you get really big townsasking, can you please make us a
(20:29):
city?
And they get turned down.
That's an aside.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And I'm guessing a market town is the size of a
town, but throughout history ithas had a place where markets
can be held weekly.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I don't know exactly, but I do know that we have a
market that goes back to theKing John era.
So you know, King John, MagnaCarta era, that's when our
market was established.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Sounds like you enjoy history.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I like history, I'm interested in history and we're
surrounded by it.
It's not that we necessarilyhave to go out and look for it.
The pub in town is from thesame era as our Abbey.
The pub was built in the 13thcentury.
It's not the only pub, but it'sthe most picturesque one.
It's always there and people dounderstand it because it's just
(21:22):
part of life.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now while we're on this subject, if anyone finds
themselves with a few days inWyndham, what historical sites,
museums, hikes and restaurantswould you suggest they visit?
It sounds like that old pub isa must.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Okay, so I would definitely go to the Abbey.
The Abbey was built in 1108.
It's magnificent.
From the outside it looks likea ruin, but from the inside it
is just magnificent and theyhold concerts and various art
things there, and the greendragon pub is just around the
corner from it.
So I would stop and have a mealthere.
(21:56):
Hikes I would say more walks,because we have no elevation.
There's a lovely walk that runsalongside the river, along the
abbey where there are animalsgrazing, and out past the
allotments, which is communitygardens for growing vegetables,
along the railway.
So it just goes and goes, so Iwould do that walk.
(22:18):
We do have a museum, theWyndham Heritage Museum, where
you can learn more about theRobert Kett story.
We have lots of independentshops, so I would say, come in
and take your time so you canstop and have a coffee and then
do a bit more, and then havelunch and then do a bit more and
have a bit of cake, so you cango in all our lovely cafes.
(22:40):
We do have a specifically vegancafe.
Um, I'm vegan and so I reallyappreciate it.
They they don't label itanywhere, but if you order a
coffee, it comes without milk.
It's called loaf and theyspecialize in baked goods.
So, yeah, you'd be all righthere, it's lovely, and then a
couple of days you couldprobably get a day and a half
(23:01):
out of Wyndham, um.
But then Norwich is fabulous andit's an UNESCO city of
literature.
It's only eight miles up theroad.
It has loads and loads ofbookshops, it has the National
Writers' Centre.
It has the University of EastAnglia, has a very esteemed
creative writing programme thatproduced people like Ray
Bradbury, kansu Oishiguru,margaret Atwood frequently does
(23:24):
residencies there, so it's aserious writing programme.
So we're very, very bookie andliterary around here.
So you would definitely want togo to Norwich as well, and
Norwich is just a fabulous cityand of course, let's not forget
Ket's Books.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's a must visit.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well, obviously yes.
First off, we do get people whocome to Wyndham to visit the
bookshop.
But yes, definitely, and let'stalk about books.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
What are you currently reading, Tracy?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
What am I currently reading?
So there's a crime series by aman named Tim Solomon Over here.
They're published by Bloomsbury, but they are available in the
US.
I did check, I'd heard reallygood things and I hadn't tried
them.
But I'm reading one that'sbeing published in January
called the Bookseller.
Yeah, so an advanced copy, adigital advanced copy, and I'm
(24:15):
really enjoying it.
So the the detective in thesestories.
It's set in Bristol, which isin the southern UK.
He has autism and so he doesn'talways have all the social
graces that might be called forin a situation.
Occasionally he flips throughhis notebook to find out what he
might be called for in asituation.
Occasionally he flips throughhis notebook to find out what
he's supposed to say in thissituation.
But the premise in thisparticular book and it's maybe
(24:39):
sixth in the series is that arare books dealer has been found
in his bookshop stabbed throughthe heart.
So they managed to get in ultrarich Russians and all sorts of
other things, and I thought Iknew who'd done it, but I was
wrong.
So I'm glad because I don'twant it to be obvious.
I'm really, really enjoying itactually.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So I'm looking forward to pushing that into the
customer's hands in January andthe paperbacks in the meantime,
I love thrillers and I enjoycrime thrillers, and I never
really got into reading themuntil the pandemic.
And then I couldn't stopreading them once I picked up
the first one.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, so I've talked to William Shaw, who also writes
a really great series of bookscrime books.
I talked to him about when hecame to one of our visits, one
of our author talks, and he saidthat particularly women enjoy
reading crime because in thatstory arc there's a reassurance
that the baddie gets caught andthat life is full of reasons to
(25:43):
be afraid that things do gowrong.
But justice works out, thebaddie gets caught, everything
will be okay.
That's how he explains it.
Um, I just think it's a reliefbetween literature I.
I mean, I really really enjoyedcreation lake by rachel kushner
(26:03):
.
I really did.
But then I needed somethingthat was a bit lighter, that I
wasn't trying to understand.
I know that there's so much toCreation Lake that I felt like I
needed to think about it andmake sure I was getting all the
benefit from it.
But I don't have to do thatwith a crime novel.
I can just enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'm busy writing down all the names of the books
you've just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I would be doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Tracy, the stall looks absolutely gorgeous, Thank
, you.
And when I get to Wyndham Ishall definitely pop in and
visit.
Website for Kett's Books iskettsbookscouk, and please check
out the show notes for a listof the books that we've spoken
about today.
Tracy, thank you so much forbeing a guest on the Bookshop
Podcast.
It's been lovely getting toknow you and to learn about
(26:48):
Kett's Books.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's been great talking to you.
Thanks very much, and comevisit Wyndham and come and find
us.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You've been listening to my conversation with Tracey
Kenney, co-founder of Ket'sBooks in Wyndham, the UK.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
To find out more about theBookshop Podcast, go to
(27:15):
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Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week, I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
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(00:33):
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You're listening to episode 283.
What do you do when you discoveryour local bookshop is closing
on Christmas Eve?
Well, in this case, strangersgot together in a pub in Wyndham
(00:54):
, UK, to explore whether a groupof volunteers could actually
run a bookshop.
They agreed that where theylacked experience, they had
goodwill and enthusiasm and, asit turned out, quite a lot of
determination.
In only eight weeks they'dformed the Friends Group and
raised funding, formed a companywith their name and logo and
(01:15):
had the keys to their communitybookshop.
I'm excited to chat with TracyKenney, Managing Director of
Ketz Books.
Hi, Tracy, and welcome to theshow.
It's great to have you here.
It's really good to be here.
Thank you.
Here I am beginning my day andit's kind of the end of your
workday, so how are you feeling?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm good, Thank you.
We kind of get to the end ofthe day and of course you want
to go home, but then you don'twant to go home.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Because it's just great working in a bookshop.
Now, before we get into thestory of Ket's books.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'd like to learn about you and your work as a
story strategist.
Ah well that.
So it was a short time, but itdid serve me really well in
coming into bookselling.
So I had worked in a largecompany for a very long time,
getting an idea about allaspects of the company, and when
we needed to communicatesomething, it was a large
financial company.
Just telling people this iswhat you need to know didn't
(02:09):
really go down very well, butwhen we used an anecdote to
express why it was important andtalked about the human impact,
people seemed to relate to it.
They saw themselves in thesituation.
They thought about what theywould do faced with the same
problem, and so they were reallyengaged with it.
And then when we got to thesolution they were in.
There was so much more buy-inwhen you told things like that.
(02:33):
So toward the end of my time inthe big company, they were going
through a rebrand.
They were changing their namecompletely, and I had found out
about this brand storytellingthing and had spent quite a lot
of time researching it.
So they took me into the mostsenior people's offices and
asked me to help them form theirspeeches about why they
(02:57):
believed in the change.
So they were amused andtolerant.
They weren't convinced.
And so I sat down with them andI said, yeah, we'll talk about
that in a minute.
So what do you do at theweekend?
And they thought that was adistraction.
(03:18):
But then they would starttelling me stories about, for
instance, how they would go outon a kayak with their young
children.
And I sort of prompted it andI'd say, surely that's dangerous
.
And they would say, but I knowmy equipment and I know my
limits and I know the route andI know I can handle it and the
benefits are worth the risk.
(03:39):
And so they were forming theirown story about how they were
taking the company into a newarea.
And so when they finishedtalking I said, well, there's
your speech.
And they were absolutelyflabbergasted.
But I did it three times withthese senior guys.
And then they went to theBarbican, a respected theater in
(03:59):
London, and gave a presentationto several hundred people and
they just told these storieseach of them, and they all got
standing ovations.
So that kind of work that Iwent on to do when I left the
company, to help people locatethe stories that they already
had in themselves, to explainthe other things that they
wanted to convince people of.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing quite like the power of
storytelling.
As I've said many times beforeon this podcast, I believe that
through reading well-writtenfiction we develop empathy for
others and, let's face it, weneed more of that these days and
I'm guessing the work you didpreviously as a story strategist
helps with book selling andalso with building community
(04:42):
within your volunteers withbuilding community within your
volunteers.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, yes, I mean, I really use it in terms of
anticipating the customerexperience and because we're a
not-for-profit bookshop, we're asocial enterprise, I am a
bookseller, but I don't have tobe the bookseller, so we extend
that experience to lots ofpeople who also work in the shop
.
Who I mean?
Who doesn't want to work in abookshop?
So we have lots of reallycapable, experienced people who
(05:13):
are able to talk to thecustomers, share their life
experience and share the storiesthat they've enjoyed and share
that community with them, thatthey've enjoyed and share that
community with them.
So I've been able to kind of inreal life, offer a new story
for those people so they canstep into that role of
bookseller and have themeaningful experience that we,
so many of us, get to enjoy, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yes, it absolutely does.
Can you share the history ofKet's Books, where the name
derives and how you becameinvolved with the bookshop?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Okay, so Wyndham has always had a bookshop, as long
as any of my oldest customerscan remember.
I keep asking them.
And in 2013, the previousbookshop was going to close on
Christmas Eve and never openagain.
And so my colleague, Ray Rumsby, knew about community
businesses and he said this is atown that needs to have a
(06:08):
bookshop.
So he and I called a meeting ina pub and a load of strangers
got together and we all said wecan run a bookshop, it can't be
that difficult.
And so we then spent the next11 years figuring out how
difficult it is.
And so, from when we met in thepub as a group of strangers in
the middle of September 2013, wehad formed a company registered
(06:33):
at Companies House, we had ourfunding, we had our branding, we
had the keys to the business bythe 1st of February Wow, that's
organization and dedication.
Yeah.
So it was a whirlwind and wehad all these volunteers who
were willing to come in andlearn to run a bookshop with us.
Everyone brought differentskills or experience or
(06:53):
enthusiasm.
We have lots of volunteers whoactually don't work in the shop
but they bring other skills thatthey're on hand behind the
scenes.
So we needed a name for theshop, and one of those behind
the scenes volunteers did aworkshop with us, kind of to
identify our brand where we weregoing to sit on several
continuums, like are we going tobe really stuffy or are we
going to be really relaxed, andthose sorts of lines.
(07:15):
So he knew what our name wasgoing to be, where we were going
, but he helped us to to come upwith that we needed to be
called Kett's books, becauseRobert Kett is the most famous
son of Wyndham.
In 1549, the government, whichwas led at the time by Edward VI
, decided to enclose the commonlands where people were grazing
(07:40):
their sheep and were farming,and this meant that they didn't
have access to food.
So that was the law.
The fences went up and it was areally big problem.
So the local farmers went to alandowner someone who was of a
better class and explained thesituation, and that was Robert
(08:00):
Kett, and he said yes, you'reright, this is unjust.
The people of Wyndham need tohave their community lands and
so, long story short, they metat an oak tree just up the road
from here.
It's still there, it's calledKett's Oak, and they marched on
Norwich, which is our nearestcity, eight miles up the road.
(08:22):
They defeated the King's army.
They went on to London and theydidn't win that one, but he
formed an army of 16,000 peoplewho were camped out in Norwich,
and so they had their own systemof discipline, their own system
of feeding everyone.
It was a really sophisticatedmini society that was there for
(08:42):
quite a while while they werepreparing these battles, and he
fought for the protection of thecommunity benefit, the things
that were good for the people.
So when we needed to name ourcommunity bookshop, we realized
that naming it after someonewhose values we shared and who
wanted to save something thatwas really vital to the
(09:04):
community was the best way to go.
So we called it Ket's Books.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
What a fabulous story and it's fascinating how his
values and the bookshop's valuesline up.
Ket's Books.
What a fabulous story and it'sfascinating how his values and
the bookshop's values line up.
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, it really is.
But also I think it's one ofthe best things anyone can do
when naming their business toname it after something that
everyone feels ownership of inthe town.
So, particularly since we're acommunity bookshop for even
people who haven't been in herefeel like they own a little bit
of the cat story and they get itand they know what it's about
and they feel like with any ofthe other historical assets in
(09:39):
the town.
This is part of what belongs tothem.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And what happened to cats?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Robert Kett was hung at Norwich Castle in December
1549.
So the story doesn't have areally happy ending.
And his brother, william, washung from the abbey here in
Wyndham.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, that's not great, butthey put their lives on the line
.
They fought the good fight.
They fought the good fight andif you go back and look at what
(10:04):
they actually asked for, itcovers quite a lot of ground.
It asks for things like commonmeasurements when people are
weighing out for trade to have acommon system of measurement.
So, yeah, they were reallygreat leaders and we're very,
very happy and fortunate to beable to name our business after
them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And it's something to be proud of.
Just before we go any further,I do want to explain.
Wyndham is actually speltcapital W-Y-M-O-N-D-H-A-M, but
it's pronounced Wyndham.
It's definitely an English wordthat I had to hear pronunciated
correctly, because otherwise Ijust knew I was going to say it
incorrectly.
It is.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yes, it's pronounced Wyndham.
There are two Wyndhams in theUK.
This is the Wyndham in Norfolk,which is just south of Norwich
just south of Norwich, so ham atthe end.
You've got ham places all overthe US, like Birmingham, and so
I believe that's about being ahamlet.
I don't know why the middlesyllable got dropped, but
(11:06):
Norfolk is full of these placesthat identify the locals or the
visitors by their understandingof the pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
When it comes to names that I'm not too sure how
to pronounce, I Google how topronounce and the name of the
town or someone's name.
It's the only way I canmemorize pronunciation.
Yeah, can you share with us howthe bookshop is curated and by
whom it's curated?
Do you curate the store basedon tourism Although, after
(11:36):
hearing you speak, I'm guessingit has a lot to do with your
community of readers but at thesame time, you still have to
make money.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, every business does that, don't they?
They have to sell what theirmarket is going to want to read.
So we have a lot of generalinterest.
We have an awful lot of naturalhistory.
Books about trees go really,really well.
We have a strong fictionsection and a really strong
children's section About thetrees.
We have two trees in our shop.
(12:04):
They're not live trees but thetrunks are real.
We actually moved, I have tosay.
We were in a tiny, tiny littlecourtyard location for 10 years,
and then that last year wemoved onto the high street in a
20 room building.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Wow, that's a lot of space, I know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And that's because we had outgrown the other and we
needed to make room for ourvolunteers to all be able to
live up to their potential andto be able to deliver to the
community what we knew we coulddo.
So I went to the public ourvolunteers, our customers, we
have friends of the shop and Isaid, look, this is what we've
(12:42):
done, this is what we could do.
We need your backing and theybacked us and we have been here
in this new beautiful buildinghere.
That's another story.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Do you use up all 20 rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
No, no, it was great fun while they were vacant
though.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yes, I bet it was wonderful having all that space
to unpack boxes of books.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Honestly, it was just so much fun after having been
in a kind of 20 foot longbuilding for 10 years and those
wheelie step things that you getin bookshops and libraries are
called a kick step.
That was basically my desk formost of the 10 years.
I sat on one of those with mylaptop on my knees and then for
about six months I had my choiceof 20 rooms to knock around in.
So now we have tenants, peoplewho share our values, who are
running other businesses, like achildren's mental health
(13:36):
service is here in our building.
So it's really terrific becausethe benefit that our customers
and our volunteers get fromtalking to each other our
tenants are beginning to get byworking together with each other
.
So it's a kind of businesscommunity in addition to the
bookshop community.
So that's really reallywonderful.
Um, so the curation we sell whatour customers want to read.
(14:02):
We are guided by what our umvolunteers discover as well.
They're in other bookshopslistening to the radio, whatever
.
We have some pretty clearcriteria and we do love an
independent press, but it needsto be the right independent
press.
We do lean into working withthe big publishers like penguin,
(14:22):
faber, bloomsbury, cachette,because they have the editorial
system.
So we know there's a prettygood chance that it's going to
be a well-written book,well-edited, well-presented and
a decent physical product.
But we do talk to people abouttheir local books, particularly
(14:43):
if they are a customer or ifthey shop in Wyndham.
If they've written a book thenwe're interested in talking to
them.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, you have some fabulous small and medium
presses in the UK and Ireland.
One recently that I'vediscovered is Heloise Press,
founded by Ina Marti, and one oftheir books, abandonment, was
one of my favourite books of2024.
I thought it was fabulous.
And then you also have Sort ofBooks, another independent
(15:10):
publishing venture by MarkEllingham and Natania Jantz
Natania has actually been on theshow.
They published the Seven Moonsof Mali Almeida by Sheyhan
Karuna Talaka, and that won the2022 Booker Prize.
So I mean we have somefantastic small and medium
presses globally.
That's just two that I canthink of off the top of my head.
(15:31):
Tell me about what a typicalday at the bookshop looks like
for you and your volunteercommunity.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Okay, so we are open 9.30 to 5.
And is that seven days a week?
There's six at the moment, butI'm working on seven.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
We have People on Arota.
They know what their day is,they know who they're likely to
be working with.
So the front of shop team comein at 9.15.
They are responsible forlooking after the shop floor,
opening boxes, putting books onthe shelves, answering the phone
, handling customer queries.
(16:06):
Then we have a back room, whichis still a treat, and in the
back room we have other peoplewho will be doing work.
And because it's still a bigbuilding and we do have lots of
work to do, we have a whole newkind of population of volunteers
who would never have wantedanything to do with talking to
customers about books, butthey're really happy to come in
(16:28):
and paint, and so we're able toreach a whole new section of the
community who are getting thebenefit of being part of us.
So we've got kind of thesethree groups of people working
at any given time.
But what we do is we just havepeople start off just answering
the phone, looking after thebooks, learning to run the till,
but then, as we find out whatthey're good at, we give them
(16:51):
other things to do.
So everybody has kind ofanother job that they do when
they're not busy with thecustomers.
I was really influenced bymarcus buckingham and the work
he did around strengths a fewyears ago, and I think that
that's the only way to managepeople is to find out what makes
them feel strong.
So we, we give them the basicsand then when I realize you're
(17:13):
really good at this, we givethem that to do as a job and
then they love doing that.
The thing that's differentabout KETS books I mean
bookshops all have people whowant to be there, but in KETS
books in particular, in acommunity bookshop, people are
all there because they reallybelieve in it and they can't
wait to come in.
And lots of my people are inmore than once a week because
(17:35):
they just love it here andthey're not looking at the clock
.
They want to be here.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
When we look at the current state or the turmoil of
the world, I think libraries andbookshops are still safe places
for people to gather and haveconversations.
Safe places for people togather and have conversations.
When I research the history ofbookshops, in particular,
radical bookshops around theworld although the UK has a lot
more than the US does at themoment, radical bookshops seem
(18:04):
to be places where, even now,conversations can take place,
you can share different pointsof view without hostility and
aggression, and that's probablyone of the main reasons I
started this podcast.
I wanted to support that safespace for conversations, for
education, for acknowledgementof differences, and that's vital
(18:25):
at this time.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yes, it really is.
Yeah, and one of my favoritethings is when customers start
talking to each other.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Oh, yes, that's wonderful.
I've worked in a bookshopmyself and, oh my goodness, that
just used to make my heart sing.
And that's what community andbuilding relationships is all
about.
Yeah, Tracy, I read thatWyndham is a market town in
South Norfolk.
What defines a market town, atown and a village in the UK?
Oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So a village, I would say, is going to have houses in
the hundreds, but the housesaren't spread out here.
In a particularly rural villagemight be, but properties are a
lot smaller here.
People only have really as muchgarden as they will actually
(19:17):
use.
So in the US people might havea lot of land but they can't use
all of it, can they?
For instance, my garden isabout, which means yard is about
50 feet long by about 30 feetwide, and that's perfectly fine
for my family of four.
But that also means that myneighbours are close.
So if you have a hundred housesof that proportion, it's only
(19:43):
going to cover a not very bigarea.
That's your village.
Villages also have a lot ofcharming buildings, so thatched
roofs, exposed beams, that kindof thing.
Town is going to be anythingbigger than that, which is going
to have services like schools,libraries, post office, a lot
more shops.
In a village you're going tohave, if you're lucky, a pub, a
(20:05):
library and a primary school.
But a town is going to probablyhave a high school and so on.
And then I'm going to saycities, apparently, officially,
a city has to have a cathedral.
You could have a place, a town,with a population in the
hundreds of thousands.
But if it doesn't have acathedral then it's not
designated a city.
So you get really big townsasking, can you please make us a
(20:29):
city?
And they get turned down.
That's an aside.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And I'm guessing a market town is the size of a
town, but throughout history ithas had a place where markets
can be held weekly.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I don't know exactly, but I do know that we have a
market that goes back to theKing John era.
So you know, King John, MagnaCarta era, that's when our
market was established.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Sounds like you enjoy history.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I like history, I'm interested in history and we're
surrounded by it.
It's not that we necessarilyhave to go out and look for it.
The pub in town is from thesame era as our Abbey.
The pub was built in the 13thcentury.
It's not the only pub, but it'sthe most picturesque one.
It's always there and people dounderstand it because it's just
(21:22):
part of life.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now while we're on this subject, if anyone finds
themselves with a few days inWyndham, what historical sites,
museums, hikes and restaurantswould you suggest they visit?
It sounds like that old pub isa must.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Okay, so I would definitely go to the Abbey.
The Abbey was built in 1108.
It's magnificent.
From the outside it looks likea ruin, but from the inside it
is just magnificent and theyhold concerts and various art
things there, and the greendragon pub is just around the
corner from it.
So I would stop and have a mealthere.
(21:56):
Hikes I would say more walks,because we have no elevation.
There's a lovely walk that runsalongside the river, along the
abbey where there are animalsgrazing, and out past the
allotments, which is communitygardens for growing vegetables,
along the railway.
So it just goes and goes, so Iwould do that walk.
(22:18):
We do have a museum, theWyndham Heritage Museum, where
you can learn more about theRobert Kett story.
We have lots of independentshops, so I would say, come in
and take your time so you canstop and have a coffee and then
do a bit more, and then havelunch and then do a bit more and
have a bit of cake, so you cango in all our lovely cafes.
(22:40):
We do have a specifically vegancafe.
Um, I'm vegan and so I reallyappreciate it.
They they don't label itanywhere, but if you order a
coffee, it comes without milk.
It's called loaf and theyspecialize in baked goods.
So, yeah, you'd be all righthere, it's lovely, and then a
couple of days you couldprobably get a day and a half
(23:01):
out of Wyndham, um.
But then Norwich is fabulous andit's an UNESCO city of
literature.
It's only eight miles up theroad.
It has loads and loads ofbookshops, it has the National
Writers' Centre.
It has the University of EastAnglia, has a very esteemed
creative writing programme thatproduced people like Ray
Bradbury, kansu Oishiguru,margaret Atwood frequently does
(23:24):
residencies there, so it's aserious writing programme.
So we're very, very bookie andliterary around here.
So you would definitely want togo to Norwich as well, and
Norwich is just a fabulous cityand of course, let's not forget
Ket's Books.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's a must visit.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well, obviously yes.
First off, we do get people whocome to Wyndham to visit the
bookshop.
But yes, definitely, and let'stalk about books.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
What are you currently reading, Tracy?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
What am I currently reading?
So there's a crime series by aman named Tim Solomon Over here.
They're published by Bloomsbury, but they are available in the
US.
I did check, I'd heard reallygood things and I hadn't tried
them.
But I'm reading one that'sbeing published in January
called the Bookseller.
Yeah, so an advanced copy, adigital advanced copy, and I'm
(24:15):
really enjoying it.
So the the detective in thesestories.
It's set in Bristol, which isin the southern UK.
He has autism and so he doesn'talways have all the social
graces that might be called forin a situation.
Occasionally he flips throughhis notebook to find out what he
might be called for in asituation.
Occasionally he flips throughhis notebook to find out what
he's supposed to say in thissituation.
But the premise in thisparticular book and it's maybe
(24:39):
sixth in the series is that arare books dealer has been found
in his bookshop stabbed throughthe heart.
So they managed to get in ultrarich Russians and all sorts of
other things, and I thought Iknew who'd done it, but I was
wrong.
So I'm glad because I don'twant it to be obvious.
I'm really, really enjoying itactually.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So I'm looking forward to pushing that into the
customer's hands in January andthe paperbacks in the meantime,
I love thrillers and I enjoycrime thrillers, and I never
really got into reading themuntil the pandemic.
And then I couldn't stopreading them once I picked up
the first one.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, so I've talked to William Shaw, who also writes
a really great series of bookscrime books.
I talked to him about when hecame to one of our visits, one
of our author talks, and he saidthat particularly women enjoy
reading crime because in thatstory arc there's a reassurance
that the baddie gets caught andthat life is full of reasons to
(25:43):
be afraid that things do gowrong.
But justice works out, thebaddie gets caught, everything
will be okay.
That's how he explains it.
Um, I just think it's a reliefbetween literature I.
I mean, I really really enjoyedcreation lake by rachel kushner
(26:03):
.
I really did.
But then I needed somethingthat was a bit lighter, that I
wasn't trying to understand.
I know that there's so much toCreation Lake that I felt like I
needed to think about it andmake sure I was getting all the
benefit from it.
But I don't have to do thatwith a crime novel.
I can just enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'm busy writing down all the names of the books
you've just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I would be doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Tracy, the stall looks absolutely gorgeous, Thank
, you.
And when I get to Wyndham Ishall definitely pop in and
visit.
Website for Kett's Books iskettsbookscouk, and please check
out the show notes for a listof the books that we've spoken
about today.
Tracy, thank you so much forbeing a guest on the Bookshop
Podcast.
It's been lovely getting toknow you and to learn about
(26:48):
Kett's Books.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's been great talking to you.
Thanks very much, and comevisit Wyndham and come and find
us.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You've been listening to my conversation with Tracey
Kenney, co-founder of Ket'sBooks in Wyndham, the UK.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
To find out more about theBookshop Podcast, go to
(27:15):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on X, Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
(27:37):
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, Mandy
Jackson-Beverly, Theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly,
executive assistant to Mandy,Adrienne Otterhhan, and graphic
design by Francis Farala.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
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