July 7, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, I chat with Paddy Screech, a co-owner of Word on the Water. Paddy shares the story of London's famous floating bookshop, housed in a 1920s Dutch barge moored along Regent's Canal in King's Cross, London.
Paddy takes us from his early days as a literature-loving boy in an agricultural school to his unlikely friendship with a "trampy-looking man with a fabulous mad collie cross dog" that would change his life forever. When these two bibliophiles partnered with a French boat owner, they created something extraordinary—a floating bookshop that would navigate London's canals, facing bureaucratic battles and financial uncertainty before becoming a cultural institution.
Far from witnessing decline, Word on the Water reveals a renaissance in independent bookselling, especially among younger readers seeking authentic connections in our digital world. Paddy shares fascinating insights about curating a tiny space that often sells as many books as major chains, the profound impact of the pandemic on reading habits, and how a floating bookshop became a vital community hub in an often isolating urban landscape.
The conversation explores the legacy of co-founder Jonathan Privett, whose daughter now continues his meticulous curation philosophy, shaped by his own extraordinary life experiences. You'll hear about their transition from secondhand to new books, life aboard a narrowboat, and the unexpected political intervention that saved them from closure.
This episode offers both inspiration and practical wisdom about building a community around literature. Follow us on social media, subscribe wherever you listen, and share this episode with fellow bibliophiles who believe in the transformative power of books.
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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 297.
197.
Tucked behind King's Cross atGranary Square in London, Word
on the Water is a one-of-a-kindfloating bookshop aboard a 1920s
(00:54):
Dutch barge.
This literary gem offers aneclectic selection of new and
second-hand books across everygenre, Beloved by locals and
visitors alike.
The bookshop hosts poetryreadings and live music on its
roof deck, making it a vibrantcultural hub and a must-visit
destination for book loversaround the world.
Hi, Paddy, and welcome to theshow.
(01:15):
It's lovely to meet you.
Good to meet you too.
I've not had a floatingbookshop on the show before, so
you are my first.
I don't think we've got manyfloating bookshops there's a few
out there, but we're proud tobe the first.
I think Word on the Water isprobably one of the most
photographed bookshops onInstagram, but we'll get into
that later.
And listeners, yes, you willhear a little bit of background,
(01:36):
speaking in this episodebecause Paddy is working in the
bookshop.
Okay, let's begin with learningabout you and what drew you to
study English literature atOxford.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, I went to a little agricultural, what you'd
call a public school in Devon inthe southwest of England and
that was kind of a school forthe sons of farmers and bikers
really.
And I was the son of an Englishteacher and another English
teacher, the son of an Englishteacher and another English
(02:08):
teacher.
So I was a slightly sort ofeffeminate book reading little
boy in a quite kind of machoschool.
I was sort of reading hardywhen I was like nine or
something and I got veryinterested in disappearing into
books.
First book I ever read wasWatership Down and I was so just
totally enthralled with it.
Do you know Watership Down?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Over there.
Yes, in fact, I read it to oneof my sons when he was younger
and he said Mom, why did youread that to me?
I'm so depressed.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's a big story.
All of human life is there,ironically.
And so I read that five timesin a row because I didn't really
realize you could read otherbooks at that point.
And then, yes, started readingbefore I was 10 really quite,
quite a lot.
And so by the time it came tomaking choices about what I
might want to do at theuniversity, I was this far
(02:52):
steeped in it already.
Basically, I'd read quite a lotand I had fabulous, uh,
teachers at A level which issort of 16 through 18 really
really good teacher and a reallygood art teacher, and between
the two of them I kind ofinspired them.
They were the sort of people Iwanted to turn out to be.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh, I love that story and that your parents
encouraged you to read my twinsister is a literacy consultant,
one of the campings at Britainas well.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I had no choice.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It sounds like you had a nurtured literary life
from the beginning.
Now, after university, yourlife took a turn when you moored
your narrowboat next toJonathan Privitz.
Can you share that story andhow Stéphane Chadeau entered
your life?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, so I worked for about 20 years with homeless
people and women and running bigtreatment centres and dropping
centres homeless people inLondon and running big treatment
centres and drop-in centres andI was quite burnt out and tired
and I came into a bit of moneyfrom my grandma and went for a
walk by the canal and suddenly Icould smell all the wood smoke
coming out of the boats.
(03:57):
And I grew up in sort of thecountry with an open fire and I
had this sudden, this sense thatit might be possible to live in
London in a sort of country way.
So I bought an aerobate,knowing nothing about it, and
drove it to London and parked inthis beautiful little park that
I discovered, like only a fewweeks before really, and the
(04:20):
person next to me was this sortof trampy looking man with a
fabulous mad collie cross dogand a huge cannabis cigarette
who sort of ushered me over tohis boat.
It was a kind of unlikelyfriendship and yet we just
absolutely clicked immediatelyreally, and slowly I became
(04:41):
brothers, that sort of finding asecular brother out there in
the world.
John loved boats and he'd beenon boats to do, he'd been
homeless and so voting for himhad been like an impossible
promotion from living in sort ofthe squat scene around
northeast London for 10 years,he was now living under a willow
(05:02):
tree next to sort of moorhensand wildlife of the marshland.
The area of London that we wereboth parked in is like a hole in
London.
It's as London would have beenif there'd been no city at all.
It's the original wetland thatwould have covered all of the
(05:22):
area of London if it hadn't beensettled by people.
And so it felt like beensettled by people and so it felt
like escaping London really,and living on a boat felt like
escaping a city and escapingeverything.
Yeah, that's what's fabulousabout that.
So me and John became friendsvery quickly and began he kind
of worked on me basically tothat's not going to be enough to
(05:42):
just move onto a boat.
You know You're going to haveto change your lifestyle and you
don't want to be a boater,which is someone who lives in
the boat.
You want to be a bargee, youwant to make your living on a
boat and live on a boat.
and I must say there was nothingabout what he was saying seems
unattractive and as we werehatching our plans, which was to
do it on my own littlenarrowboat, which is about 40
(06:03):
foot long, and it would havebeen a rather.
We'd have basically sort ofrested some books on the outside
and and made a little storelike a market store.
But we'd look out the windoweach day at this wonderful 1920s
dutch barge that was parked onthe other side of the river, and
we vaguely knew the french guywho owned it and we'd heard that
(06:25):
he just had it broken intobecause he'd bought it back from
Holland to sell but then hadfallen in love with it and been
unable to sell it because everytime someone came around he'd
talk it down he's extremelyFrench and he'd be like oh the
engine is a little dodgy becausehe didn't really want to part
with it.
he loves beautiful old machinesand so he was now kind of stuck
(06:48):
with it.
He'd spent all his money buyingit.
He didn't have the money to buya license.
And now it had broken into andwe kind of swooped in like
vultures and said to him couldwe maybe rent his boat for a
year just to do this bookshopexperiment on it that john and I
have been imagining?
But he kind of immediately sawthe possibilities and was like
(07:10):
no, I'll build a stage on theroof.
We can do live performance aswell.
I will give you the boat, Iwill put the boat into the
business.
If you will, let me be a thirdof it, third of it.
And so we all had this kind ofmanic, delusional it felt at the
time, optimism about howdefinitely successful the whole
(07:31):
thing would be.
And then we started, withinwithin about five weeks of
having that conversation withhim, we were off and we'd
already begun to sort of fly thewaterways, only to discover
that we sold nothing and it washell and we couldn't afford
cigarettes and coffee anymoreand it took quite a long time to
sort of turn into a thing.
But eventually every dream weever had, for it has come true.
(07:55):
And, more frankly, once we gotthe full page in New York Times
with photos, we were like, okay,we weren't delusional it turned
out.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, you cannot beat free press, right.
And you kind of got the samething going now with social
media, because every reader orbook blogger wants to have their
photo taken at Word on theWater when they're in London.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It seems to garner attention far more than we kind
of expected that it would, andit seems that people already
know what it is.
There's this weird thing Johnand I used to say, which is that
because we weren't what we arenow at all, we were shabby and
tragic and we were both quitesad old men, we weren't in a
happy point of our lives and theboat was filthy, we still had a
(08:39):
coal fire and all the books hadfingerprints on them.
But people just knew what theywanted it to be, and when they,
if they wrote about it somewhere, they talk about it as if it
was already the thing that theywere imagining, and so it was
easy for us to just actuallyturn it into what people had
already sort of sensed it.
Also as a project.
(09:01):
It's always had its own weirdmagic.
It's like just can't stop it.
It seemed to, it seemed to be abit charmed really, and nothing
seemed to get in its way.
It's just sort of the doorsopen for it.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
We're very lucky old men it sounds like your vision
was something that the communityhad already envisioned and that
they just came together at theperfect time.
People are happier when theyhave a community hub, but,
thanks to social media, word onthe Water has grown from a
London community hub to a globalcommunity.
(09:34):
The bookshop is on social mediaeverywhere, but I can't help
but think it's more than peoplejust wanting to get a photo
taken by the bookshop.
I think it's that people wantto read.
Yeah, I mean what we discovered.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It's a fantastic time to be selling books.
This country is very interestedin books indeed, and whenever
anyone knew where we were, wewere doing very well, and there
was one we were just sellingsecondhand at that point.
But we had to move every 14days because it's very regulated
on the canal system in Britainand that meant we kept
disappearing, and so it's veryregulated on the canal system in
Britain and that meant we keptdisappearing, and so it's very
hard to build up your communitywhen the boat, the shop, has
(10:11):
disappeared.
The next time you'd go and seeit and people had to follow us
on social media to sort of knowwhere we were, which is where
the whole beginning of socialmedia knowing about us came from
, because we we didn't reallyknow much about it ourselves,
but we thought we'd better sortof have a presence so that
people could find us.
And then, after about sort ofseven or eight years,
(10:32):
reluctantly, we were beginningto realize that we weren't
making a living properly fromdoing this three people trying
to share the profits from thesouthern hand bookshop that kept
disappearing, even though wewere sort of quite well known
and people were quiteaffectionate.
It's like finding us was a bitlike you know, stumbling on one
of those sort of doorways intoanother universe and the subtle
(10:54):
knife.
You were incredibly lucky tocome upon us, and that's not
ideal in retail.
It shouldn't be like winningthe lottery to find the shop.
And so we slightly theatricallysaid eventually we're gonna have
to close, we're so sorry wecan't get a permanent mooring.
And the canal authorities wouldnever give us a permanent
mooring because we had like livejazz and poetry serams and
(11:16):
things going on on the roof andbecause we couldn't choose where
we parked.
We'd often be outside some poorperson's house and they'd sort
of write and complain.
And so the canal authorities,who were based 200 miles away
from London, had never seen theshop, kind of assumed we were
like a party boat or something,just because all they really
knew about us was the complaintsthey were getting.
(11:39):
There's a man playing asaxophone outside my bedroom.
It's been days now.
Yeah, there's a man playing asaxophone outside my bedroom.
It's been days now, yeah.
So we, um, they wouldn't let ushave a home, but we weren't
making a living not having ahome.
And so we said on social mediawe're very sorry, we think we're
going to have to close, butthey're not really turning it
over.
We can't get a mooring and wewent to paddington station,
(11:59):
which is one of the few placesthat's got a lot of footfall in
l, and we just squatted thereand refused to move, on the
grounds that at least that waywe could be selling books.
And we waited there for a yearwhile the canal authorities read
these really terrifying lettersabout how they could drain our
boat out of the water and sellit for their own profit if we
(12:19):
didn't move.
And we posted one of theirletters online because it's kind
of threatening, we thought, andthat inspired people to start
campaigning for us.
And suddenly there was apetition that one of the people
our regulars told us they'dstarted and that had that got 7
000 people signing it andthey're not.
(12:41):
Creed, who's a very famousbooker-winning author over here,
started to support us.
And Stuart Lee, who's acomedian, is very well-known
over here started supporting us.
Then we got in the newspaper andthings began to kind of roll in
our favour.
And we couldn't believe it,because we'd been chased by the
canal authorities for years andwe assumed that it was only a
(13:01):
matter of time before we'd haveto give in.
And then one day a very, veryhandsome Ghanaian, very
well-spoken gentleman came in avery expensive suit and
explained to us that he was aparliamentary private secretary.
The house of commons uh, heshouldn't really be saying it,
but we might like to know that.
We had three MPs and onecabinet minister on side and
(13:26):
there was every chance that we'dbe successful in our attempt to
get a mooring.
And we we assumed he was just,you know, passing loud.
And then we got a phone call afew weeks later from the canal
authorities saying where wouldwe like a mooring, which is very
different to the sort of tonethey'd be taking with us until
then.
So it seems that the deep stateof Great Britain in some way
(13:51):
may be lent in our favor.
And so we were offered amooring where we wanted and we
said let's go to King's Crossbecause it's near a station.
But then in the year or twothat followed us coming here,
this huge redevelopment calledGranary Square, which is like a
second Covent Garden just grewaround us.
So suddenly we're near to theSt Martins, the world famous art
(14:14):
college and the Guardiannewspaper and the British
Library and we're in a perfectplace to be selling books and
we're doing it at kind of aperfect time.
In the British book market it'sabsolutely exploding at the
moment.
Over here New littleindependent bookshops are
opening all the time and stayingopen.
It's like it's a growth spurt.
We had our dark times sort of10 years ago, when borders
(14:37):
pulled out of Britain altogetherand bookshops were saying, if
you wanted to buy your digitalversion, at a sort of sad little
stand in the shop and all thebooks have stickers on them
saying three for the price ofone, and it seemed like it was
all over.
But that's the exact oppositeof what's happened in the last
few years in this country,partly locked down.
(14:59):
A lot of young women readersare kind of saving bookshops,
reading furiously, making bookgroups, online book groups,
bookstagram, all that stuff andadvertising.
So they'll come to a bookshoplike ours, a little independent
bookshop, but then they'lladvertise it all over social
media afterwards as a sort ofthank you and tell lots of other
(15:21):
people about it.
So it's kind of an excitingtime to be selling books.
It's the exact opposite.
We thought we were getting intoa dying medium.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, I agree.
At in-person events people havesaid to me oh no one's reading
as much anymore.
And I say to them you knowwhere are you getting this
information?
And they'll just say you know,well, it's everywhere, it's on
the news.
And I'll say you know what?
Every week or every two weeksfor the last five years I've
spoken with booksellers andindependent bookshop owners from
(15:49):
around the world and they haveall said that, yeah, they have a
slow day every now and again,but overall, since the pandemic,
their businesses have grown andthat tells me that more people
are buying books and more peoplehad time to read.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Capitalism doesn't give you much time, does it, and
as soon as everyone had to stopthat for 20 minutes.
They all remembered how toconcentrate again for a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, I agree, but their argument is that they'll
come back and they say, oh, butyoung people aren't reading.
And then they'll start puttingdown social media.
And I just want to say to themyou know what?
Why don't you go on socialmedia and understand that this
is where this community lives?
There is a huge community ofreaders on Instagram with
(16:33):
hashtag bookstagrammer.
On TikTok with hashtag booktalk.
But then I think to myself hmm,maybe it's the person moaning
about the fact that peoplearen't reading who aren't
actually reading.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I mean, I think there's moaning about the fact
that people aren't reading whoaren't actually reading.
I mean, I think there's realtruth in the fact that these
damn machines have stolen andsort of twisted our attention
spans.
But there's been this absolutewave that's come up,
particularly among young peoplesuspicion of the technology,
suspicion of the internet youknow all the things that my
generation thought was soexciting and interesting.
(17:07):
There's this whole youngergeneration which are like you
know, once they tried to makereal friendships on Zoom and
realised that that really wasn'tthe same at all.
I know quite a few young peoplewho started book groups because
it was a way to try andreconnect with humans after
lockdown and a safe way and apositive way.
(17:27):
And, um, I really because it'sI know from working in a
bookshop.
It's just, it brings out theabsolute best in people.
I can't imagine any other sortof retail bookshops make put
people into their best selvesand I think young people kind of
sniff that out after lockdownwhen it was very important to
try and find a way back to eachother and back to sort of
authentic connections with eachother.
(17:49):
And I think I think it's reallynice to not have a sort of 14
second sliver of someone, butinstead to spend a week with
someone talking to you.
You know and I think a lot ofyoung readers get that too that
it's a deeper sort of contact toread a book than it is to, no
matter how much you watchsomeone's YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
One of the things that I've realized is that
reading and reading communities,book clubs etc.
Are a way to combat loneliness,and the COVID pandemic has had
a lot to do with this, and I canonly speak for the US because
that's where I live.
But there is so much divide inthis country.
It is so sad.
And yet when I speak withbooksellers, you know they tell
(18:36):
me that conversation is stillalive and well in independent
bookshops.
Independent bookshops have,throughout history, drawn
conversationalists.
We build relationships throughstories, whether we're telling
stories to one another orsharing our thoughts about a
book that we've mutually read.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's totally true and these little community-based
things, things that theinternet just doesn't generate,
naturally tries to replace, areso precious, I think, especially
in cities, um, which can alsobe quite isolating in their
nature.
The way that our shop was saved, we had really showed that
thing about.
You know, it takes a village tobuild a church that sort of.
(19:18):
We were kind of carried onpeople's shoulders because the
people in London wanted a thinglike this and things like this
so much.
They wanted a little villageenvironment where you could
connect with people exactly andyou didn't have to talk to
people.
But that made it much easier totalk to people and we're so
small, we're a bit like, youknow, when Alice eats the cake
(19:40):
and gets too big.
You kind of feel like that inthe shop.
It's such a tiny environmentand so many spaces and retail
spaces and cities are sointimidating and big and the
buildings are intimidating.
I think there's something aboutjust being tiny in a city.
That's already kind of takes abit of the pressure off people
and people.
We're small enough that peopleoverhear each other, and people
(20:01):
we're small enough that peopleoverhear each other.
So when people are talkingabout books, when you've read a
book and you hear someone elsetalking about that book, it's
impossible to keep your gob shut.
You've just got to go.
It's great, isn't it?
And that's it's a lovely way toconnect people.
And we run up.
We've got a lot of book groupsin the evenings in the shop
where people come and kind ofsit around, sit around the fire,
(20:22):
and we can never get more than10 people in.
So it keeps it kind of intimate.
And, uh, the way it's kind ofgrown the sort of skirts of
culture around it, becausepeople just needed to make that
space, it's really harnessedsomething.
One more thing I just say whenI hear american people talking
about it makes me sad because itreminds me of 10 years ago.
(20:42):
Here there's still a bit ofthat culture of, oh, do buy a
book from them.
They really need your support,and I get a sense of how it's
still quite challenging overthere.
And that's before people startknocking on the door and
intimidating you because youdon't have Jordan Peterson on
the shelf or whatever.
I've got a lot of respect forAmerican booksellers,
(21:05):
particularly now.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, let me ask you something with that in mind.
Here in the States, books arelabeled with their price.
So if your bookshop is in aplace where the rent is low,
wages are low, the cost ofliving is low, you're going to
make a bit more of a profit onthat book, right?
But if you're in New York City,san Francisco, los Angeles, any
(21:28):
other major cities where rentis exorbitantly high, your
profit margin isn't going to beas much because of higher wages,
rent unless you're lucky enoughto own the building, in which
case you're going to be payinghigh taxes.
So the margin of profit is sodifferent all over the country.
Is it the same in the UK?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was never that people didn't like bookshops, it
was always rent, and it wasrents here 10 years ago.
But Amazon a bit.
On the one hand you've got thismonopolistic, undercutting
transnational corporation that'skind of spoiling the pricing
system of books for literallyeveryone else in the retail
sector.
But predominantly that wasexactly the problem.
(22:08):
Shops would end up closingbecause the book sales didn't go
up but the rents did.
And there comes a point whereyou had to find a balance and
that's kind of still true here,being on a boat.
Everything's better on a boatand that's one of the reasons
why everything's better on theboat, because we are paying
probably about a quarter of thesort of overheads you need to do
to be able to run a bookshop.
(22:30):
And we've also learned anotherlesson which I think bookshops
should learn, who are facingthat problem, which is you can
have a bookshop four times thesize of ours, but you won't sell
any more books.
So if you have a bookshop thesize of a cupboard but it's
really tightly curated and youkeep on putting new books on the
shelf and filling it all thetime, you can still sell as many
(22:51):
books.
We probably sell about the sameas a Waterstones, which is our
big British sort of chain store,but we sell it out of the space
a quarter the size.
And so opening a bookshop at atiny, weird little corner of a
city, under an arch somewhere orthe sort of places that don't
have premium rents, can stillwork, because so long as the
(23:12):
people are coming and they'rebuying the books, it really
doesn't matter how big yourspace is, because that's just
your.
People don't really need to seemore than about 100 titles
pointing at them to be able toshop well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And with this in mind , I'd like to talk about the
curation of Word on the Water.
I read an article in TowpathTalk.
That's a fabulous littlenewspaper.
Yes, it's a fun read.
In this article you said ofJohn quote John was a
world-class curator and the bookBaj would not have been
possible or happened without him.
End quote.
Can you guide us through John'scuration style and how his
(23:47):
legacy continues, because he hasfamily members now working at
Word on the Water, right John's?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
daughter, meg, is now one of the three directors of
the company.
She's basically replaced Johnand is just as safe a pair of
hands to do that.
She was sitting cross-legged onthe floor of the book barge
when she was six and now she's23 and a highly intelligent,
just finished her universitycourse.
(24:14):
She already curates about aquarter of our books every week
and is fabulous at it, to behonest.
So John had been selling booksall his life.
He sold books when he was atschool.
He sold books on blankets and,uh, embankment station, uh on
the street and illegal trestletables in angel islington,
(24:37):
getting chased around by thecouncils.
Um, he was a kind of a homelessproducer for a number of years
and books kept him going.
He started selling books.
He met a man with a terriblehoarding who was living in a
warehouse and the guy hoardedbooks and John made a deal with
him that if John would sell someof the books, split the money
(25:00):
with him.
Then John could live on hishalf of the money and the guy
could buy more books to add tohis hoard with the money that
came in.
Could buy more books to add tohis hoard with the money that he
, um that came in from the onesthat were sold.
And so, um, from the firstmoment, john sort of learnt that
you could be free andindependent if you could find a
source of books, and he taughtme that.
He taught me I could go to acharity shop, I could buy a book
(25:21):
for a pound and I could walk toa bookshop and I could sell it
to them for two2.
And if you know that you'refree, you don't have to work for
anyone ever again.
As long as you don't work inpoor, you can have a living.
John's curation was about.
One of the reasons that peopleloved John's choices was because
(25:41):
he lived a very extreme lifeand he was very interested in
reading books by people wholived extreme lives and learned
the things you learn fromextremity and challenge that
kind of hits the zeitgeistbecause I think in the last 20
years people have felt there's areal hunger for people who have
led quite comfortable lives youknow what I mean and
existential challenge, extremityand intense poverty and intense
(26:07):
injury and illness things thatJohn was interested to read
stories about that were true,because in those sort of stories
there's a level of knowledgeyou can only really get from
either having those experiencesor reading books by people
who've had those experiences,and so one of his superpowers
was that he had an instinctiveability to teach with his
(26:28):
curation.
He loved American literature andhe loved American philosophy
particularly, and in England.
That's an interesting sort ofcuration to be put in front of
people, because not everyone'sseeing this.
But America for John wasfreedom.
He was brought up in a terrible, abusive English public school
where he had to sleep there atnight as well.
(26:49):
He wasn't allowed to leave thebuilding.
His experiences were very awful.
He had a little transistor radioand access to books, and those
were the two things that saw himthrough, and America for him
was like the symbol ofeverything that he wasn't
experiencing, experienced as thesort of freedom, the road.
And then he sold books for somany years in so many
(27:11):
environments, so many people.
He just had an invisibleinstinct to.
You could ask him to choose athousand books and every one of
them was a fabulous fan.
He also couldn't listen to.
He had a superpower in this dayand age, which is he couldn't
watch video.
He was totally disinterested.
He didn't want to watch YouTube.
He didn't watch movies.
If you tried to watch atelevision show with him, he'd
(27:32):
compete with it for attention.
Talk over it.
He had no time for video.
So the only thing he did wasread or listen to the radio, and
so he was reading 10 times whatanyone else was reading,
because it was his only form ofentertainment, and so he was
massively prolific.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
He sounds like quite a character.
Do you still sell new and usedbooks?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
We're almost predominantly new books.
Now we're an independentbookshop with a section of
secondhand books.
Because if we were to try andsell secondhand the rate we're
selling books nowadays, becauseif we were to try and sell
secondhand the rate we'reselling books nowadays, we'd
empty the charity shops ofthrift shops of northeast london
every week and we wouldn't bevery popular there's a lot of
people that need to access thosebooks.
(28:17):
So, and it's such a treat we wecurated secondhand for about
nine years and at the point atwhich we were doing enough
business to be able to startactually choosing new books,
curating new books, it was sucha treat because there's like a
million books that you know andyou hope you're going to find in
(28:38):
the back of the thrift shop,but you're not going to usually.
And so the moment that the twoof us could be like if we could
have any book in the shop, whatwould it be and we could reach
out for them, um, it was justlike a magical sort of rival for
us.
And each week now I'll sit infront of a computer for five
hours, uh, and I'll we kind ofhand curate.
(29:00):
That's the point, because ifwe're so small we can't have the
same books every week, oryou'll have done us and you
won't come back, and so that isjust the absolute best part of
the job, just sort of siftingfor the most chewy books and the
most interesting books andseeing what's come out recently.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And it is so much fun hand-selling a book to a reader
who walks into the bookshop andyou're having this discussion
and then you think I know whatbook that love.
It's like a warm, fuzzy feelingI know it's a.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's a fresh.
It's the freshest thing to beable to evade the people, and
it's kind of precious to to sortof sit on the chair and and um,
it's a special sort of kinship,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
yeah, it is because you've spent.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
You've spent a week, two weeks, both of you sort of
having this person tell youabout their lives, and so the
two of you now have a reallyquite special bond.
And if you love a book, it'sbecause it's touched you.
It's something quite personalas well, and so if two of you
love a book, there's quite a lotthat you have in common, if you
(30:03):
see what I mean.
My friend sells vegetables atan honour market store and she
works here too and she says it'sfar more interesting to talk
about.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Books than a carrot.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, the provenance of the carrot is not the most
sort of gripping subject.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh my goodness, that's funny.
Now, Paddy, do you still liveon an aeroboat?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, I've lived on an aero boat for 20 years.
I drove mine out of London forlockdown up into the countryside
in Hertfordshire and quicklyrealised I had no interest in
driving back to London.
I love London and it's lovelyto come here every two or three
days, four days a week and sortof be among humans.
But it's also nice to wake upin a forest or next to a lake
(30:47):
and so I kind of live in thecountry.
Now it was a schism between meand john.
I came up for lockdown.
John stayed resolutely livingin the book barge for lockdown,
uh, and he got terrible,terrible covid down here and it
was difficult between us becauseI was constantly trying to say
escape, come up here, you canjust walk around in the country
(31:07):
and be free, and he was like noone's staying here.
He was enraged that bookshopsweren't considered to be vital
businesses and allowed to stayopen in lockdown, because in
Germany they were, but in inLondon they closed the bookshops
and he never forgave thegovernment yeah, it was like
that here too.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
How long have you had word on the water in the
narrowboat that you have now?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, 15 years.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Do you ever have to bring the narrowboat up to
scrape down the bottom of it?
What does the upkeep of anarrowboat entail?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So in principle you do that with a boat every four
years.
We didn't do it for 12 yearsand we dragged it around the
London Canal system withoutdoing that and then we finally
took it out about two years agoand we just got away with it.
We had three millimetres hull,which is as thin as you can be,
so if you hit a shopping trolleywith three millimetres of steel
(32:03):
, you'll probably get away withit in the boat woods.
We had a surveyor come and helooked at the boat and he said
you're good.
You're good for 20 years if youdon't keep it moving around.
So we got some very expensiveepoxy paint and we painted the
whole hull in about six layersof that and so we hope we don't
(32:23):
have to take it out for another20 years.
So long as we keep it parked onthe soft silt where we are, in
principle it doesn't have to goanywhere.
We took the engine out, so theycan't tell us to move now
because we haven't got an engine.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Well, that's interesting.
Okay, Paddy, what are youcurrently reading?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I'm just finishing the wonderful Wind, Sand and
Stars.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Ah, here's the same author that wrote the Little
Prince Antoine de Saint-Expéry.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yes, de Saint-Expéry, that's right.
The Little Prince is abeautiful, beautiful children's
book, that story, the LittlePrince which is about the little
prince appearing after a planecrash in the desert.
So what Antoine did was he?
In the 1920s and 30s he flewthe mail planes the very first
(33:11):
mail deliveries by plane all theway down to South Africa and
all over South America and allover the Sahara Desert, and he
had an actual plane crash whichinspired the Little Prince.
And this is the book that hewrote in 1939 which describes
the actual plane crash whichinspired the little prince.
And this is the book that hewrote in 1939 which describes
the actual plane crash in thesahara.
(33:33):
And it's wonderful because noone was really flying things in
those days.
It was the very beginning ofcommercial flight, uh, before
the second world war.
And uh, he's an incredibledescriber of what things look
like and feel like.
He looks down at the sea in themiddle of the night and talks
about the silver tiles of thesea surface moving against each
(33:55):
other.
He's got this way of.
Even though it's in translation, it's a fabulous translation as
well.
And he goes to the SpanishCivil War and you get to sort of
fly a plane to Madrid in theSpanish Civil War and walk
around and talk to people andget a feeling for the madness of
the streets and what it waslike.
So, yes, wind, sand and Stars,which I'm loving.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Well, I adore the Little Prince, like millions of
other people, so I look forwardto reading Wind, sand and Stars.
Thank you, ok, I got anotherquestion.
Are you originally from Ireland?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
No, I was meant to be born on St Patrick's but I was
late for that and everythingever since.
But that was where the namecame from.
I was born on the day after,but I'm firmly from Devon in the
South West.
My surname is Screech, likescreeching tires, and that name.
You can map where the namecomes from in the world.
There's a great spike that doesit and it's literally that the
(34:51):
county is the only place whereyou see that name.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
So I'm devonshire, born in blake oh, I'll have to
look up that website.
Patty, thank you so much forchatting with me and sharing
your stories.
I will make sure to come byword on the water the next time
I'm in London.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh, you'll be welcome .
I shall press three books intoyour hand.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Oh, I'd love that.
The story of how Word on theWater came to be.
With your love of reading booksand the water.
It's just beautiful.
I'm so glad you shared that,thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean what it really came from and what glued it
together that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I mean what it really came from and put it together
was the love of friends, andthat's a pretty tight tie.
Patty, thanks again for beingon the bookshop podcast it's a
fabulous.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I listen.
I've sneakily listened to acouple of podcasts.
They're fabulous.
Not all podcasts in this worldare and similarly, as you can
imagine, they get quite a lot ofattention.
But your questions have beenthe most wonderfully researched,
so much better than we normallyhave to do.
So thank you for doing your jobfor me.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh, thank you, Paddy Pleasure, nice to talk to you.
Bye, you've been listening tomy conversation with Paddy
Screech from Word on the Waterin London.
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
(36:16):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(36:37):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson-Beverly, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhan.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Thank you.
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 297.
197.
Tucked behind King's Cross atGranary Square in London, Word
on the Water is a one-of-a-kindfloating bookshop aboard a 1920s
(00:54):
Dutch barge.
This literary gem offers aneclectic selection of new and
second-hand books across everygenre, Beloved by locals and
visitors alike.
The bookshop hosts poetryreadings and live music on its
roof deck, making it a vibrantcultural hub and a must-visit
destination for book loversaround the world.
Hi, Paddy, and welcome to theshow.
(01:15):
It's lovely to meet you.
Good to meet you too.
I've not had a floatingbookshop on the show before, so
you are my first.
I don't think we've got manyfloating bookshops there's a few
out there, but we're proud tobe the first.
I think Word on the Water isprobably one of the most
photographed bookshops onInstagram, but we'll get into
that later.
And listeners, yes, you willhear a little bit of background,
(01:36):
speaking in this episodebecause Paddy is working in the
bookshop.
Okay, let's begin with learningabout you and what drew you to
study English literature atOxford.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, I went to a little agricultural, what you'd
call a public school in Devon inthe southwest of England and
that was kind of a school forthe sons of farmers and bikers
really.
And I was the son of an Englishteacher and another English
teacher, the son of an Englishteacher and another English
(02:08):
teacher.
So I was a slightly sort ofeffeminate book reading little
boy in a quite kind of machoschool.
I was sort of reading hardywhen I was like nine or
something and I got veryinterested in disappearing into
books.
First book I ever read wasWatership Down and I was so just
totally enthralled with it.
Do you know Watership Down?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Over there.
Yes, in fact, I read it to oneof my sons when he was younger
and he said Mom, why did youread that to me?
I'm so depressed.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's a big story.
All of human life is there,ironically.
And so I read that five timesin a row because I didn't really
realize you could read otherbooks at that point.
And then, yes, started readingbefore I was 10 really quite,
quite a lot.
And so by the time it came tomaking choices about what I
might want to do at theuniversity, I was this far
(02:52):
steeped in it already.
Basically, I'd read quite a lotand I had fabulous, uh,
teachers at A level which issort of 16 through 18 really
really good teacher and a reallygood art teacher, and between
the two of them I kind ofinspired them.
They were the sort of people Iwanted to turn out to be.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh, I love that story and that your parents
encouraged you to read my twinsister is a literacy consultant,
one of the campings at Britainas well.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I had no choice.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It sounds like you had a nurtured literary life
from the beginning.
Now, after university, yourlife took a turn when you moored
your narrowboat next toJonathan Privitz.
Can you share that story andhow Stéphane Chadeau entered
your life?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, so I worked for about 20 years with homeless
people and women and running bigtreatment centres and dropping
centres homeless people inLondon and running big treatment
centres and drop-in centres andI was quite burnt out and tired
and I came into a bit of moneyfrom my grandma and went for a
walk by the canal and suddenly Icould smell all the wood smoke
coming out of the boats.
(03:57):
And I grew up in sort of thecountry with an open fire and I
had this sudden, this sense thatit might be possible to live in
London in a sort of country way.
So I bought an aerobate,knowing nothing about it, and
drove it to London and parked inthis beautiful little park that
I discovered, like only a fewweeks before really, and the
(04:20):
person next to me was this sortof trampy looking man with a
fabulous mad collie cross dogand a huge cannabis cigarette
who sort of ushered me over tohis boat.
It was a kind of unlikelyfriendship and yet we just
absolutely clicked immediatelyreally, and slowly I became
(04:41):
brothers, that sort of finding asecular brother out there in
the world.
John loved boats and he'd beenon boats to do, he'd been
homeless and so voting for himhad been like an impossible
promotion from living in sort ofthe squat scene around
northeast London for 10 years,he was now living under a willow
(05:02):
tree next to sort of moorhensand wildlife of the marshland.
The area of London that we wereboth parked in is like a hole in
London.
It's as London would have beenif there'd been no city at all.
It's the original wetland thatwould have covered all of the
(05:22):
area of London if it hadn't beensettled by people.
And so it felt like beensettled by people and so it felt
like escaping London really,and living on a boat felt like
escaping a city and escapingeverything.
Yeah, that's what's fabulousabout that.
So me and John became friendsvery quickly and began he kind
of worked on me basically tothat's not going to be enough to
(05:42):
just move onto a boat.
You know You're going to haveto change your lifestyle and you
don't want to be a boater,which is someone who lives in
the boat.
You want to be a bargee, youwant to make your living on a
boat and live on a boat.
and I must say there was nothingabout what he was saying seems
unattractive and as we werehatching our plans, which was to
do it on my own littlenarrowboat, which is about 40
(06:03):
foot long, and it would havebeen a rather.
We'd have basically sort ofrested some books on the outside
and and made a little storelike a market store.
But we'd look out the windoweach day at this wonderful 1920s
dutch barge that was parked onthe other side of the river, and
we vaguely knew the french guywho owned it and we'd heard that
(06:25):
he just had it broken intobecause he'd bought it back from
Holland to sell but then hadfallen in love with it and been
unable to sell it because everytime someone came around he'd
talk it down he's extremelyFrench and he'd be like oh the
engine is a little dodgy becausehe didn't really want to part
with it.
he loves beautiful old machinesand so he was now kind of stuck
(06:48):
with it.
He'd spent all his money buyingit.
He didn't have the money to buya license.
And now it had broken into andwe kind of swooped in like
vultures and said to him couldwe maybe rent his boat for a
year just to do this bookshopexperiment on it that john and I
have been imagining?
But he kind of immediately sawthe possibilities and was like
(07:10):
no, I'll build a stage on theroof.
We can do live performance aswell.
I will give you the boat, Iwill put the boat into the
business.
If you will, let me be a thirdof it, third of it.
And so we all had this kind ofmanic, delusional it felt at the
time, optimism about howdefinitely successful the whole
(07:31):
thing would be.
And then we started, withinwithin about five weeks of
having that conversation withhim, we were off and we'd
already begun to sort of fly thewaterways, only to discover
that we sold nothing and it washell and we couldn't afford
cigarettes and coffee anymoreand it took quite a long time to
sort of turn into a thing.
But eventually every dream weever had, for it has come true.
(07:55):
And, more frankly, once we gotthe full page in New York Times
with photos, we were like, okay,we weren't delusional it turned
out.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, you cannot beat free press, right.
And you kind of got the samething going now with social
media, because every reader orbook blogger wants to have their
photo taken at Word on theWater when they're in London.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It seems to garner attention far more than we kind
of expected that it would, andit seems that people already
know what it is.
There's this weird thing Johnand I used to say, which is that
because we weren't what we arenow at all, we were shabby and
tragic and we were both quitesad old men, we weren't in a
happy point of our lives and theboat was filthy, we still had a
(08:39):
coal fire and all the books hadfingerprints on them.
But people just knew what theywanted it to be, and when they,
if they wrote about it somewhere, they talk about it as if it
was already the thing that theywere imagining, and so it was
easy for us to just actuallyturn it into what people had
already sort of sensed it.
Also as a project.
(09:01):
It's always had its own weirdmagic.
It's like just can't stop it.
It seemed to, it seemed to be abit charmed really, and nothing
seemed to get in its way.
It's just sort of the doorsopen for it.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
We're very lucky old men it sounds like your vision
was something that the communityhad already envisioned and that
they just came together at theperfect time.
People are happier when theyhave a community hub, but,
thanks to social media, word onthe Water has grown from a
London community hub to a globalcommunity.
(09:34):
The bookshop is on social mediaeverywhere, but I can't help
but think it's more than peoplejust wanting to get a photo
taken by the bookshop.
I think it's that people wantto read.
Yeah, I mean what we discovered.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It's a fantastic time to be selling books.
This country is very interestedin books indeed, and whenever
anyone knew where we were, wewere doing very well, and there
was one we were just sellingsecondhand at that point.
But we had to move every 14days because it's very regulated
on the canal system in Britainand that meant we kept
disappearing, and so it's veryregulated on the canal system in
Britain and that meant we keptdisappearing, and so it's very
hard to build up your communitywhen the boat, the shop, has
(10:11):
disappeared.
The next time you'd go and seeit and people had to follow us
on social media to sort of knowwhere we were, which is where
the whole beginning of socialmedia knowing about us came from
, because we we didn't reallyknow much about it ourselves,
but we thought we'd better sortof have a presence so that
people could find us.
And then, after about sort ofseven or eight years,
(10:32):
reluctantly, we were beginningto realize that we weren't
making a living properly fromdoing this three people trying
to share the profits from thesouthern hand bookshop that kept
disappearing, even though wewere sort of quite well known
and people were quiteaffectionate.
It's like finding us was a bitlike you know, stumbling on one
of those sort of doorways intoanother universe and the subtle
(10:54):
knife.
You were incredibly lucky tocome upon us, and that's not
ideal in retail.
It shouldn't be like winningthe lottery to find the shop.
And so we slightly theatricallysaid eventually we're gonna have
to close, we're so sorry wecan't get a permanent mooring.
And the canal authorities wouldnever give us a permanent
mooring because we had like livejazz and poetry serams and
(11:16):
things going on on the roof andbecause we couldn't choose where
we parked.
We'd often be outside some poorperson's house and they'd sort
of write and complain.
And so the canal authorities,who were based 200 miles away
from London, had never seen theshop, kind of assumed we were
like a party boat or something,just because all they really
knew about us was the complaintsthey were getting.
(11:39):
There's a man playing asaxophone outside my bedroom.
It's been days now.
Yeah, there's a man playing asaxophone outside my bedroom.
It's been days now, yeah.
So we, um, they wouldn't let ushave a home, but we weren't
making a living not having ahome.
And so we said on social mediawe're very sorry, we think we're
going to have to close, butthey're not really turning it
over.
We can't get a mooring and wewent to paddington station,
(11:59):
which is one of the few placesthat's got a lot of footfall in
l, and we just squatted thereand refused to move, on the
grounds that at least that waywe could be selling books.
And we waited there for a yearwhile the canal authorities read
these really terrifying lettersabout how they could drain our
boat out of the water and sellit for their own profit if we
(12:19):
didn't move.
And we posted one of theirletters online because it's kind
of threatening, we thought, andthat inspired people to start
campaigning for us.
And suddenly there was apetition that one of the people
our regulars told us they'dstarted and that had that got 7
000 people signing it andthey're not.
(12:41):
Creed, who's a very famousbooker-winning author over here,
started to support us.
And Stuart Lee, who's acomedian, is very well-known
over here started supporting us.
Then we got in the newspaper andthings began to kind of roll in
our favour.
And we couldn't believe it,because we'd been chased by the
canal authorities for years andwe assumed that it was only a
(13:01):
matter of time before we'd haveto give in.
And then one day a very, veryhandsome Ghanaian, very
well-spoken gentleman came in avery expensive suit and
explained to us that he was aparliamentary private secretary.
The house of commons uh, heshouldn't really be saying it,
but we might like to know that.
We had three MPs and onecabinet minister on side and
(13:26):
there was every chance that we'dbe successful in our attempt to
get a mooring.
And we we assumed he was just,you know, passing loud.
And then we got a phone call afew weeks later from the canal
authorities saying where wouldwe like a mooring, which is very
different to the sort of tonethey'd be taking with us until
then.
So it seems that the deep stateof Great Britain in some way
(13:51):
may be lent in our favor.
And so we were offered amooring where we wanted and we
said let's go to King's Crossbecause it's near a station.
But then in the year or twothat followed us coming here,
this huge redevelopment calledGranary Square, which is like a
second Covent Garden just grewaround us.
So suddenly we're near to theSt Martins, the world famous art
(14:14):
college and the Guardiannewspaper and the British
Library and we're in a perfectplace to be selling books and
we're doing it at kind of aperfect time.
In the British book market it'sabsolutely exploding at the
moment.
Over here New littleindependent bookshops are
opening all the time and stayingopen.
It's like it's a growth spurt.
We had our dark times sort of10 years ago, when borders
(14:37):
pulled out of Britain altogetherand bookshops were saying, if
you wanted to buy your digitalversion, at a sort of sad little
stand in the shop and all thebooks have stickers on them
saying three for the price ofone, and it seemed like it was
all over.
But that's the exact oppositeof what's happened in the last
few years in this country,partly locked down.
(14:59):
A lot of young women readersare kind of saving bookshops,
reading furiously, making bookgroups, online book groups,
bookstagram, all that stuff andadvertising.
So they'll come to a bookshoplike ours, a little independent
bookshop, but then they'lladvertise it all over social
media afterwards as a sort ofthank you and tell lots of other
(15:21):
people about it.
So it's kind of an excitingtime to be selling books.
It's the exact opposite.
We thought we were getting intoa dying medium.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, I agree.
At in-person events people havesaid to me oh no one's reading
as much anymore.
And I say to them you knowwhere are you getting this
information?
And they'll just say you know,well, it's everywhere, it's on
the news.
And I'll say you know what?
Every week or every two weeksfor the last five years I've
spoken with booksellers andindependent bookshop owners from
(15:49):
around the world and they haveall said that, yeah, they have a
slow day every now and again,but overall, since the pandemic,
their businesses have grown andthat tells me that more people
are buying books and more peoplehad time to read.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Capitalism doesn't give you much time, does it, and
as soon as everyone had to stopthat for 20 minutes.
They all remembered how toconcentrate again for a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, I agree, but their argument is that they'll
come back and they say, oh, butyoung people aren't reading.
And then they'll start puttingdown social media.
And I just want to say to themyou know what?
Why don't you go on socialmedia and understand that this
is where this community lives?
There is a huge community ofreaders on Instagram with
(16:33):
hashtag bookstagrammer.
On TikTok with hashtag booktalk.
But then I think to myself hmm,maybe it's the person moaning
about the fact that peoplearen't reading who aren't
actually reading.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I mean, I think there's moaning about the fact
that people aren't reading whoaren't actually reading.
I mean, I think there's realtruth in the fact that these
damn machines have stolen andsort of twisted our attention
spans.
But there's been this absolutewave that's come up,
particularly among young peoplesuspicion of the technology,
suspicion of the internet youknow all the things that my
generation thought was soexciting and interesting.
(17:07):
There's this whole youngergeneration which are like you
know, once they tried to makereal friendships on Zoom and
realised that that really wasn'tthe same at all.
I know quite a few young peoplewho started book groups because
it was a way to try andreconnect with humans after
lockdown and a safe way and apositive way.
(17:27):
And, um, I really because it'sI know from working in a
bookshop.
It's just, it brings out theabsolute best in people.
I can't imagine any other sortof retail bookshops make put
people into their best selvesand I think young people kind of
sniff that out after lockdownwhen it was very important to
try and find a way back to eachother and back to sort of
authentic connections with eachother.
(17:49):
And I think I think it's reallynice to not have a sort of 14
second sliver of someone, butinstead to spend a week with
someone talking to you.
You know and I think a lot ofyoung readers get that too that
it's a deeper sort of contact toread a book than it is to, no
matter how much you watchsomeone's YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
One of the things that I've realized is that
reading and reading communities,book clubs etc.
Are a way to combat loneliness,and the COVID pandemic has had
a lot to do with this, and I canonly speak for the US because
that's where I live.
But there is so much divide inthis country.
It is so sad.
And yet when I speak withbooksellers, you know they tell
(18:36):
me that conversation is stillalive and well in independent
bookshops.
Independent bookshops have,throughout history, drawn
conversationalists.
We build relationships throughstories, whether we're telling
stories to one another orsharing our thoughts about a
book that we've mutually read.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's totally true and these little community-based
things, things that theinternet just doesn't generate,
naturally tries to replace, areso precious, I think, especially
in cities, um, which can alsobe quite isolating in their
nature.
The way that our shop was saved, we had really showed that
thing about.
You know, it takes a village tobuild a church that sort of.
(19:18):
We were kind of carried onpeople's shoulders because the
people in London wanted a thinglike this and things like this
so much.
They wanted a little villageenvironment where you could
connect with people exactly andyou didn't have to talk to
people.
But that made it much easier totalk to people and we're so
small, we're a bit like, youknow, when Alice eats the cake
(19:40):
and gets too big.
You kind of feel like that inthe shop.
It's such a tiny environmentand so many spaces and retail
spaces and cities are sointimidating and big and the
buildings are intimidating.
I think there's something aboutjust being tiny in a city.
That's already kind of takes abit of the pressure off people
and people.
We're small enough that peopleoverhear each other, and people
(20:01):
we're small enough that peopleoverhear each other.
So when people are talkingabout books, when you've read a
book and you hear someone elsetalking about that book, it's
impossible to keep your gob shut.
You've just got to go.
It's great, isn't it?
And that's it's a lovely way toconnect people.
And we run up.
We've got a lot of book groupsin the evenings in the shop
where people come and kind ofsit around, sit around the fire,
(20:22):
and we can never get more than10 people in.
So it keeps it kind of intimate.
And, uh, the way it's kind ofgrown the sort of skirts of
culture around it, becausepeople just needed to make that
space, it's really harnessedsomething.
One more thing I just say whenI hear american people talking
about it makes me sad because itreminds me of 10 years ago.
(20:42):
Here there's still a bit ofthat culture of, oh, do buy a
book from them.
They really need your support,and I get a sense of how it's
still quite challenging overthere.
And that's before people startknocking on the door and
intimidating you because youdon't have Jordan Peterson on
the shelf or whatever.
I've got a lot of respect forAmerican booksellers,
(21:05):
particularly now.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, let me ask you something with that in mind.
Here in the States, books arelabeled with their price.
So if your bookshop is in aplace where the rent is low,
wages are low, the cost ofliving is low, you're going to
make a bit more of a profit onthat book, right?
But if you're in New York City,san Francisco, los Angeles, any
(21:28):
other major cities where rentis exorbitantly high, your
profit margin isn't going to beas much because of higher wages,
rent unless you're lucky enoughto own the building, in which
case you're going to be payinghigh taxes.
So the margin of profit is sodifferent all over the country.
Is it the same in the UK?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was never that people didn't like bookshops, it
was always rent, and it wasrents here 10 years ago.
But Amazon a bit.
On the one hand you've got thismonopolistic, undercutting
transnational corporation that'skind of spoiling the pricing
system of books for literallyeveryone else in the retail
sector.
But predominantly that wasexactly the problem.
(22:08):
Shops would end up closingbecause the book sales didn't go
up but the rents did.
And there comes a point whereyou had to find a balance and
that's kind of still true here,being on a boat.
Everything's better on a boatand that's one of the reasons
why everything's better on theboat, because we are paying
probably about a quarter of thesort of overheads you need to do
to be able to run a bookshop.
(22:30):
And we've also learned anotherlesson which I think bookshops
should learn, who are facingthat problem, which is you can
have a bookshop four times thesize of ours, but you won't sell
any more books.
So if you have a bookshop thesize of a cupboard but it's
really tightly curated and youkeep on putting new books on the
shelf and filling it all thetime, you can still sell as many
(22:51):
books.
We probably sell about the sameas a Waterstones, which is our
big British sort of chain store,but we sell it out of the space
a quarter the size.
And so opening a bookshop at atiny, weird little corner of a
city, under an arch somewhere orthe sort of places that don't
have premium rents, can stillwork, because so long as the
(23:12):
people are coming and they'rebuying the books, it really
doesn't matter how big yourspace is, because that's just
your.
People don't really need to seemore than about 100 titles
pointing at them to be able toshop well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And with this in mind , I'd like to talk about the
curation of Word on the Water.
I read an article in TowpathTalk.
That's a fabulous littlenewspaper.
Yes, it's a fun read.
In this article you said ofJohn quote John was a
world-class curator and the bookBaj would not have been
possible or happened without him.
End quote.
Can you guide us through John'scuration style and how his
(23:47):
legacy continues, because he hasfamily members now working at
Word on the Water, right John's?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
daughter, meg, is now one of the three directors of
the company.
She's basically replaced Johnand is just as safe a pair of
hands to do that.
She was sitting cross-legged onthe floor of the book barge
when she was six and now she's23 and a highly intelligent,
just finished her universitycourse.
(24:14):
She already curates about aquarter of our books every week
and is fabulous at it, to behonest.
So John had been selling booksall his life.
He sold books when he was atschool.
He sold books on blankets and,uh, embankment station, uh on
the street and illegal trestletables in angel islington,
(24:37):
getting chased around by thecouncils.
Um, he was a kind of a homelessproducer for a number of years
and books kept him going.
He started selling books.
He met a man with a terriblehoarding who was living in a
warehouse and the guy hoardedbooks and John made a deal with
him that if John would sell someof the books, split the money
(25:00):
with him.
Then John could live on hishalf of the money and the guy
could buy more books to add tohis hoard with the money that
came in.
Could buy more books to add tohis hoard with the money that he
, um that came in from the onesthat were sold.
And so, um, from the firstmoment, john sort of learnt that
you could be free andindependent if you could find a
source of books, and he taughtme that.
He taught me I could go to acharity shop, I could buy a book
(25:21):
for a pound and I could walk toa bookshop and I could sell it
to them for two2.
And if you know that you'refree, you don't have to work for
anyone ever again.
As long as you don't work inpoor, you can have a living.
John's curation was about.
One of the reasons that peopleloved John's choices was because
(25:41):
he lived a very extreme lifeand he was very interested in
reading books by people wholived extreme lives and learned
the things you learn fromextremity and challenge that
kind of hits the zeitgeistbecause I think in the last 20
years people have felt there's areal hunger for people who have
led quite comfortable lives youknow what I mean and
existential challenge, extremityand intense poverty and intense
(26:07):
injury and illness things thatJohn was interested to read
stories about that were true,because in those sort of stories
there's a level of knowledgeyou can only really get from
either having those experiencesor reading books by people
who've had those experiences,and so one of his superpowers
was that he had an instinctiveability to teach with his
(26:28):
curation.
He loved American literature andhe loved American philosophy
particularly, and in England.
That's an interesting sort ofcuration to be put in front of
people, because not everyone'sseeing this.
But America for John wasfreedom.
He was brought up in a terrible, abusive English public school
where he had to sleep there atnight as well.
(26:49):
He wasn't allowed to leave thebuilding.
His experiences were very awful.
He had a little transistor radioand access to books, and those
were the two things that saw himthrough, and America for him
was like the symbol ofeverything that he wasn't
experiencing, experienced as thesort of freedom, the road.
And then he sold books for somany years in so many
(27:11):
environments, so many people.
He just had an invisibleinstinct to.
You could ask him to choose athousand books and every one of
them was a fabulous fan.
He also couldn't listen to.
He had a superpower in this dayand age, which is he couldn't
watch video.
He was totally disinterested.
He didn't want to watch YouTube.
He didn't watch movies.
If you tried to watch atelevision show with him, he'd
(27:32):
compete with it for attention.
Talk over it.
He had no time for video.
So the only thing he did wasread or listen to the radio, and
so he was reading 10 times whatanyone else was reading,
because it was his only form ofentertainment, and so he was
massively prolific.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
He sounds like quite a character.
Do you still sell new and usedbooks?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
We're almost predominantly new books.
Now we're an independentbookshop with a section of
secondhand books.
Because if we were to try andsell secondhand the rate we're
selling books nowadays, becauseif we were to try and sell
secondhand the rate we'reselling books nowadays, we'd
empty the charity shops ofthrift shops of northeast london
every week and we wouldn't bevery popular there's a lot of
people that need to access thosebooks.
(28:17):
So, and it's such a treat we wecurated secondhand for about
nine years and at the point atwhich we were doing enough
business to be able to startactually choosing new books,
curating new books, it was sucha treat because there's like a
million books that you know andyou hope you're going to find in
(28:38):
the back of the thrift shop,but you're not going to usually.
And so the moment that the twoof us could be like if we could
have any book in the shop, whatwould it be and we could reach
out for them, um, it was justlike a magical sort of rival for
us.
And each week now I'll sit infront of a computer for five
hours, uh, and I'll we kind ofhand curate.
(29:00):
That's the point, because ifwe're so small we can't have the
same books every week, oryou'll have done us and you
won't come back, and so that isjust the absolute best part of
the job, just sort of siftingfor the most chewy books and the
most interesting books andseeing what's come out recently.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And it is so much fun hand-selling a book to a reader
who walks into the bookshop andyou're having this discussion
and then you think I know whatbook that love.
It's like a warm, fuzzy feelingI know it's a.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's a fresh.
It's the freshest thing to beable to evade the people, and
it's kind of precious to to sortof sit on the chair and and um,
it's a special sort of kinship,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
yeah, it is because you've spent.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
You've spent a week, two weeks, both of you sort of
having this person tell youabout their lives, and so the
two of you now have a reallyquite special bond.
And if you love a book, it'sbecause it's touched you.
It's something quite personalas well, and so if two of you
love a book, there's quite a lotthat you have in common, if you
(30:03):
see what I mean.
My friend sells vegetables atan honour market store and she
works here too and she says it'sfar more interesting to talk
about.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Books than a carrot.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, the provenance of the carrot is not the most
sort of gripping subject.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh my goodness, that's funny.
Now, Paddy, do you still liveon an aeroboat?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, I've lived on an aero boat for 20 years.
I drove mine out of London forlockdown up into the countryside
in Hertfordshire and quicklyrealised I had no interest in
driving back to London.
I love London and it's lovelyto come here every two or three
days, four days a week and sortof be among humans.
But it's also nice to wake upin a forest or next to a lake
(30:47):
and so I kind of live in thecountry.
Now it was a schism between meand john.
I came up for lockdown.
John stayed resolutely livingin the book barge for lockdown,
uh, and he got terrible,terrible covid down here and it
was difficult between us becauseI was constantly trying to say
escape, come up here, you canjust walk around in the country
(31:07):
and be free, and he was like noone's staying here.
He was enraged that bookshopsweren't considered to be vital
businesses and allowed to stayopen in lockdown, because in
Germany they were, but in inLondon they closed the bookshops
and he never forgave thegovernment yeah, it was like
that here too.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
How long have you had word on the water in the
narrowboat that you have now?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, 15 years.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Do you ever have to bring the narrowboat up to
scrape down the bottom of it?
What does the upkeep of anarrowboat entail?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So in principle you do that with a boat every four
years.
We didn't do it for 12 yearsand we dragged it around the
London Canal system withoutdoing that and then we finally
took it out about two years agoand we just got away with it.
We had three millimetres hull,which is as thin as you can be,
so if you hit a shopping trolleywith three millimetres of steel
(32:03):
, you'll probably get away withit in the boat woods.
We had a surveyor come and helooked at the boat and he said
you're good.
You're good for 20 years if youdon't keep it moving around.
So we got some very expensiveepoxy paint and we painted the
whole hull in about six layersof that and so we hope we don't
(32:23):
have to take it out for another20 years.
So long as we keep it parked onthe soft silt where we are, in
principle it doesn't have to goanywhere.
We took the engine out, so theycan't tell us to move now
because we haven't got an engine.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Well, that's interesting.
Okay, Paddy, what are youcurrently reading?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I'm just finishing the wonderful Wind, Sand and
Stars.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Ah, here's the same author that wrote the Little
Prince Antoine de Saint-Expéry.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yes, de Saint-Expéry, that's right.
The Little Prince is abeautiful, beautiful children's
book, that story, the LittlePrince which is about the little
prince appearing after a planecrash in the desert.
So what Antoine did was he?
In the 1920s and 30s he flewthe mail planes the very first
(33:11):
mail deliveries by plane all theway down to South Africa and
all over South America and allover the Sahara Desert, and he
had an actual plane crash whichinspired the Little Prince.
And this is the book that hewrote in 1939 which describes
the actual plane crash whichinspired the little prince.
And this is the book that hewrote in 1939 which describes
the actual plane crash in thesahara.
(33:33):
And it's wonderful because noone was really flying things in
those days.
It was the very beginning ofcommercial flight, uh, before
the second world war.
And uh, he's an incredibledescriber of what things look
like and feel like.
He looks down at the sea in themiddle of the night and talks
about the silver tiles of thesea surface moving against each
(33:55):
other.
He's got this way of.
Even though it's in translation, it's a fabulous translation as
well.
And he goes to the SpanishCivil War and you get to sort of
fly a plane to Madrid in theSpanish Civil War and walk
around and talk to people andget a feeling for the madness of
the streets and what it waslike.
So, yes, wind, sand and Stars,which I'm loving.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Well, I adore the Little Prince, like millions of
other people, so I look forwardto reading Wind, sand and Stars.
Thank you, ok, I got anotherquestion.
Are you originally from Ireland?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
No, I was meant to be born on St Patrick's but I was
late for that and everythingever since.
But that was where the namecame from.
I was born on the day after,but I'm firmly from Devon in the
South West.
My surname is Screech, likescreeching tires, and that name.
You can map where the namecomes from in the world.
There's a great spike that doesit and it's literally that the
(34:51):
county is the only place whereyou see that name.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
So I'm devonshire, born in blake oh, I'll have to
look up that website.
Patty, thank you so much forchatting with me and sharing
your stories.
I will make sure to come byword on the water the next time
I'm in London.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh, you'll be welcome .
I shall press three books intoyour hand.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Oh, I'd love that.
The story of how Word on theWater came to be.
With your love of reading booksand the water.
It's just beautiful.
I'm so glad you shared that,thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean what it really came from and what glued it
together that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I mean what it really came from and put it together
was the love of friends, andthat's a pretty tight tie.
Patty, thanks again for beingon the bookshop podcast it's a
fabulous.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I listen.
I've sneakily listened to acouple of podcasts.
They're fabulous.
Not all podcasts in this worldare and similarly, as you can
imagine, they get quite a lot ofattention.
But your questions have beenthe most wonderfully researched,
so much better than we normallyhave to do.
So thank you for doing your jobfor me.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh, thank you, Paddy Pleasure, nice to talk to you.
Bye, you've been listening tomy conversation with Paddy
Screech from Word on the Waterin London.
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
(36:16):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(36:37):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson-Beverly, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhan.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Thank you.
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