Janet Brakspear doesn’t consider herself a saleswoman, and her big ambition was simply to belong in a community. Today her shop wins awards and is, she says, the job she didn’t realise she was born to do. We caught up with her among the bookshelves.
Where did the business begin?
I always loved bookshops but I didn’t start here until I was in my late 30s. I was a bit of a feckless youth. After a couple of years working at Waterstones, I sailed across the Atlantic in an old wooden boat that was fundamentally sinking! And I didn’t stop sailing until I was 37. Amazing I survived given the risks I took. In between trips I worked in Waterstones and pubs, took jobs as a cleaner, all sorts of things. Then I found a part-time job here to and was commuting in from Bristol until I got married and moved here. I met my husband, Nick, at a local choir I’d joined in the town. He’s Corsham born and bred and there is no taking Corsham out of the man. So, when in 2008 the owner of this shop left I took on the business. I knew straightaway this was what I was born to do.
What’s the secret of selling books?
I love it and think it’s about believing in what I am selling. I want people to buy, not only to give me a living, but so they can experience other worlds and other perspectives. I think books are the basis of civilisation, books are one way that we can learn from people we have never met. We are, after all, standing on the shoulders of giants and books are how you can pass on information and wisdom from a distance in both place and time.
I'd say even in a recession books become an affordable luxury. People may have given up holidays but many continued to buy themselves a book. In Covid I still came into the shop and took orders and then cycled round in the afternoon delivering them. It did help cement my role in the community and we still do some deliveries now.
It’s an ongoing process. If someone comes in for, say, the new Jamie Oliver I always tell them if it's cut price at Sainsbury’s. Some do buy it there, but then they often come back. They find the more unusual and quirky in my shop. And we make it an experience. Not just the books we sell, but through book readings with a glass of wine, or via cookery events. And that in turn helps me feel I belong here. And I suppose that belonging was my ambition all along. People knowing who you are, and you knowing who they are. Assuming I live to 85, I will have spent half my life living all over the place doing lots of different things but the second half will be here. I always wanted to be part of a community. Spending the latter of my life doing that is an ambition fulfilled.
When customers are used to online or superstore shopping, walking through the door of a small shop is a big step. But we know that and work hard to make sure the welcome is real. We only have a maximum of two people behind the counter so as not to be too intimidating, and we never turn our back on customers, never bother them if they’re just browsing.
But we’ve also realised that they often say they don’t need help when in fact they haven’t realised that they can ask, and that we probably know the book they’re looking for or can recommend one to suit their needs. I think too many people have become unaccustomed to asking for help in shops, and so they might miss out on what independents can do.
My husband's family have lived in the same house for 100 years (his great great grandparents moved here in the 1870s). It’s fascinating – in our cupboard we have sermons going back to the 18th century. But my favourite piece of local history is rooted in the fact Corsham was on the main Bath road and was one of the places where they changed the horses when travelling between London, Bath and Bristol. It was a staging post with stables a bit like a motorway service station of its day. Did you know that is why they call them stagecoaches – the stopping point between the different stages of the journey?
The great Victorian writer Charles Dickens passed through Corsham, and the experience shaped the title of The Pickwick Papers. You can read more in Julian’s story in our Voices section.
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