The Last Bookshop

[Shopkeeper:
NARRATING]

There have always been stories.

Ever since the earliest days.

[Music]

I suppose

in the beginning,

rather than holographic

colour and noise,

stories were more like

dreams spoken aloud.

They were bison

on cave walls and

campfire myths

of how the world was born.

Those verbal stories:

that's where it must

all have begun.

They were magic!

They were alive!

But being alive,

they also had to die.

They vanished

with the breath of the storyteller.

To be reincarnated.

Evolving, mutating

with each re-telling.

Until eventually,

the original stories

were lost forever.

[ZAP]

[Boy:
]

Mum!

Mum!?

[Music]

[Door:
Bell]

[Door:
Bell]

[Music]

[Shopkeeper:
]

Ah!

You're here at last!

It's alright.

Don't be frightened.

Is this

what you were after?

Go on!

[TOCK-TOCK-TOCK]

No,

look.

Isn't it wonderful?

I started to worry

that you'd never come.

Every morning

I open the shop full of hope,

but in vain.

At closing time, I bring

all the books in from the empty street.

Take down the awning.

Telling myself:

maybe tomorrow.

Maybe

tomorrow he'll arrive.

[Boy:
]

Who?

[Shopkeeper:
]

You!

[Boy:
]

Me?

[Shopkeeper:
]

Yes. You, sir.

You are my first customer

in 25 years,

2 months

and 6 days.

That's what I've been

waiting for.

[Shopkeeper:
HUMMING]

[BOY:
]

What's a customer?

[Shopkeeper:
]

It's like when you

buy things on a computer.

Only better!

You get to come here.

See the books.

Touch them, and smell them.

[Boy:
SNIFFS and

COUGHS]

[Shopkeeper:
]

Old books. Nothing like it!

E Nesbit seems to have

the best bouquet, I think.

Though I found some

heady Bronts the other day,

in a box with

some old pipe tobacco.

You should catch

a whiff of it. [GRINS]

It'll knock your socks off!

[Both:
LAUGHING]

[Boy:
]

Is this a story?

[Shopkeeper:
]

Oh yes, yes.

[Boy:
]

Well what else does it do?

[Shopkeeper:
]

Do? Do?

It's a book!

It paints pictures

in your head!

It gives you memories of things

you will never experience.

Look, the only way

you will ever find out,

is to explore for yourself.

Be my guest.

You can read

whatever you like!

Would you like that?

[Shopkeeper:
NARRATING]

After much archaeology of my shelves,

he went home

with Kenneth Graham,

Richmal Crompton,

a Beano annual,

and a whole host

of treasures besides.

I almost

envied him,

discovering them

for the first time.

After 25 years

of waiting,

my books had a new reader

at last.

[Boy:
] In the old days,

did everyone used to read books?

[Shopkeeper:
] As a lad

we all queued up at midnight,

for a book

about a wizard.

It was the vogue.

[Music]

[Shopkeeper:
NARRATING]

I imagined him poring over every page.

Engrossed in the characters

and the illustrations.

Falling in love

with books.

Just as I had done

at his age.

I suppose

it was naive,

to have expected him

to come back

the very next day.

He'd never read

a single book before.

Let alone

a whole pile.

But as the days

turned into weeks,

I started to wonder

if I had simply dreamt him.

Was the boy

a phantom?

Prophesying

my fall into madness?

Would I soon

have a shop

teeming

with fictional customers!?

[Clock:
CHIMES]

If I were to die,

what would happen

to my books?

Would I be found

rotting among them?

Or would

no-one come?

Would the walls

crumble,

and the roof

cave in on me,

until the rain

dissolved each volume,

and my bones

drowned,

in a sea

of papier-mch?

The meaning

washed away with ink.

The books growing back

into a forest.

The boy wasn't

coming back was he?

I was saving

the books for no-one.

[Boy:
]

Hello!

Hello!?

Can I read some more

books please?

To dear Stuart,

with best wishes,

from Mother and Father.

What happened to them?

Where's Stuart now?

[Shopkeeper:
]

They're long gone.

That book was unwrapped

on a Christmas morning,

long before even

my grandfather was born.

The world

was a different place then.

[Boy:
]

How did it end up here?

[Shopkeeper:
] My books

are not second hand at all.

They are fifth or sixth hand,

you know.

In the old days,

when someone died,

I might be donated

a whole cardboard box full.

That was when everyone

had books in their house.

Nowadays the attics and

alcoves of England are bare.

Even the elderly don't seem

to leave books behind any more.

[Boy:
] What happened

to the other bookshops?

[Shopkeeper:
]

There aren't any.

Oh, there used to be

a whole network of us.

But they all

went out of business.

Or passed away.

Now it's just me.

And as for the books,

well,

this is the lot!

For a time, I was able to raid

skips and wheelie bins for new stock.

But, ah,

that all dried up.

[Boy:
] Oh!

What's this?

[Shopkeeper:
] I think you've found

an old banknote.

[Boy:
]

I promise to pay the bearer,

on demand,

the sum of

Five Pounds.

[Shopkeeper:
] Ha, yeh,

it's a funny thing,

but banknotes

weren't real money.

They were sort of,

um,

promissory notes,

from the King.

And before that,

the Queen.

Though I don't think

she ever coughed up.

[LAUGHS]

[Boy:
]

What's "money"?

[Music]

[Shopkeeper:
] When you

wanted to buy a book,

or anything else

for that matter,

rather than tapping numbers

into a computer,

you gave the shopkeeper

some of these.

[Boy:
]

As a swap?

[Shopkeeper:
]

Yes, if you like.

[Boy:
] Couldn't you read

any of the books for free?

[Shopkeeper:
] You could borrow books,

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