Foyles
I first visited London in 1958, aged ten. After taking the sleeper from Dundee, Scotland, Mother and I pulled into King’s Cross and disembarked into the largest train station I’d ever seen. Large became one word I associated with London. Kew Gardens – the largest botanical gardens I’d ever wandered through. St. Paul’s Cathedral, the largest church I’d ever experienced. And Foyles, the largest bookstore I’d ever entered in my short life.
We went to Foyles on our first rainy afternoon. I swear it filled a city block, large even by the standards of the 1950s when bookstores were more prominent than today.
We walked into a delightful chaos of nooks and crannies, and the musty smell that comes from books that have been around for a while. Shelves were built against the walls and perpendicular to them. All were laden with books, but when the books outgrew the shelves, staff stacked them on the floor in front of the most relevant shelf. I turned my head sideways or crouched down to read the spines, except for the few titles lucky enough to be on top where I could see their front covers. No one stopped me from sitting on a pile to browse a book that caught my attention. I was glad I didn’t have a book in mind when I walked in because how could I have found it? I later learned that a competitor ran ad campaigns under the heading “Foyled again: try Dillons.”
At the back of the store, two nooks were devoted to two different publishers. The smell of fresh ink and paper was bright and sharp. In one nook, I was enveloped by books in light blue and white, with black trim. I felt cool and elegant but uninterested in the content. In the other, I was surrounded by a wall of blazing orange with a row of little penguins at the bottom of the spines.
That’s where Mother found me when she was ready to leave.
“Someday I’m going to have my name on an orange spine,” I said.
“That’s nice, dear,” she replied, not paying much attention because I regularly burst out with what I’d do or have “someday.”
“You may choose one book,” she said.
One book among so many? After half hour, Mother said, “Just make a decision.”
Eventually, I chose the latest book by my favorite Scottish author, Sheila Stuart – Alison’s Riding Adventure (I still have it). Mother and I then worked our way through Foyle’s “chit” system. We got in line for the counter assistant, who put my book aside and gave Mother a slip with the price. Next, we queued for the cashier’s booth where Mother paid the requisite 7/6 (seven shillings and sixpence being the standard price for a Sheila Stuart book in those days). The clerk stamped “Paid” on the receipt with a satisfying thud. Finally, we went back to the first line to trade that in for my book. This process was tantalizing as I grew more impatient for my book.
At last, we left with me clutching my neatly wrapped book.
Foyles became my synonym for London, not just for its size, but for its nooks and crannies, the piling up and spilling over of books, the ultimate browsing experience, so like walking the city streets and finding treasures around every corner.
Years later, I visited the store again, desperately seeking an out-of-print book on ancient calligraphy that I’m sure would have been delisted if the store had known it was there. Luckily, a long-time staff member with a wonderful memory doddered into the dim recess of a nook and found it for me.
Since then, I’ve heard stories that endear me even more to the original Foyles and which are now codified on Foyles’ “about” page (https://www.foyles.co.uk/about-us): telegramming Hitler with a request to buy the books he was burning in the 1930s (he refused); and the vegetarian George Bernard Shaw finishing a speech on the protection of birds at a Literary Luncheons, after which guests were served chicken. As for their three-part “chit” system, people reportedly said: “If Kafka had been a bookseller, Foyles would have been the result.”
The last time I was in London, I gravitated to Foyles, only to discover that it had been sold to Waterstones and moved a few doors down, with the stipulation that the name Foyles be retained. The store is still large but organized. I didn’t see a single book on the floor.
Aline Soules’ poetry, fiction, and book reviews have appeared in Kenyon Review, Houston Literary Review, Poetry Midwest, Galway Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, and others. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. https://alinesoules.com