Since the bookshop closed, over the years, it’s been great reminiscing with Sophie and Casper, and it’s helped Casper in particular, get over some issues that were emotionally draining for him at the time. Shortly after I left, the shop was relocated to another part of the town, but because it was a  modern construction, with a larger floorspace, the sales targets were significantly increased to reflect this.

This in itself was overwhelming for Casper, but he was unable to voice his opinions because he knew the only reply he would receive was,

“Tough. Get over it. Buying this new building has crippled the company’s expenses and we’ve still got more shops to refurbish.  It’s up to you to recover the profits, and quickly.”

Adding of course,

”We are a charity.”

Unfortunately, this made it increasingly difficult for Casper to fully enjoy his new surroundings, even with a cosy, new, self-service coffee and seating area.

He marvels at how I remember incidents and people so clearly and in such detail. Some events were so traumatic for him that he wonders if his mind blanked some things out. I am always amazed at how the brain adjusts in order to cope with traumatic situations and I am inclined to agree with his conclusion, because he doesn’t remember Hazel at all, yet she was our most regular and longstanding Saturday worker.

For me, there is an issue more serious to discuss. I’m going say something that might be controversial, but I have to be honest. If I was given the chance to work in a Christian bookshop again, either in person or online, I don’t think I would do it. My spiritual conscience tells me this is a bad idea.

I thank God for the authors who were a marvellous encouragement to me. Elizabeth Elliot has always portrayed a beautiful example of godly womanhood and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to recommend her as positive influence.

However, I am sad to say that over the years, I have discovered that a great number of Christian books do not contain biblical accuracy to the point that they could lead people astray. For example, there is a book out there written by renowned Christian teacher, who claims that God gives Cancer to people as a gift. Firstly, God doesn’t give diseases to anybody, and secondly, God does not gift anyone with anything nasty. Would you give your baby dog excrement to eat if you ran out of pureed potato? This is just one example of many extreme, erroneous teachings.

So many famous teachers and recording artists are coming out of the woodwork claiming that they don’t believe in God anymore and that everything they said previously is a lie. Why would I want to promote that person’s book or CD?

On similar note, there is this big debate going on in the ‘Christian world’ at the moment as to whether churches should play worship songs that have been penned by songwriters connected to certain churches that are blatantly heretical. They are not just misguiding people on scripture, but involving themselves in demonic practices and seemingly not caring when this is pointed out by others.

I am seeing video clips of pastors from mega churches finding it impossible to answer simple biblical questions and some even declaring in the middle of their sermon, “I am God!”. We cannot blame A.I. or extreme video editing for it all – most of it is real.

As much as I still love Christian music, I am not sure that I would be happy to promote some of the artists that I did back then, for that reason and others.

Lastly, there is talk about many bible versions having been corrupted, where it has been proven by biblical scholars that meanings have been significantly changed, and there are particular versions where verses have been deliberately omitted.  I loved it when The Message was released because Eugene Peterson was not hiding the fact that it was a paraphrase.  But today, certain translations that are not translations at all, have eased their way into existence and I don’t think even Louise would be able to hide them behind the Giant Print KJVs.

From a view of spiritual integrity, I could not bring myself to promote and sell questionable items.

It saddens me to think that nowadays, Hindu books sneaking in amongst the piles are the least of our concerns. It is the subtlety of evil things masquerading as good that concerns me, because it is far more deceptive and therefore, more dangerous.

But I should end on a happy note, shouldn’t I?

Despite everything, I still nurture feelings of fondness whenever I look back to my days at the shop. I do wish I could be given the chance to go back in time and put things right that I got wrong. Oh, there are so many things I would do differently! I would have focused more on the positive attributes of our customers, rather than whining about the negative ones. I would have made more effort to listen and been more aware of the needs of my colleagues.

I had the opportunity to read some great books that I would not have stumbled upon had I not worked there. My favourite being, “Soul Obsession” by Nicky Cruz. I also discovered, Phillips Craig and Dean and their album,  “Let My Words be Few” is still one of my favourites.

All in all, I am eternally grateful to Archie for giving me the opportunity to work for the company and I can honestly say it has been the best job I have ever had.

For a large proportion of retailers, the Christmas period is their most important time of the year, because that is when they make the most profit. For us, Christmas was the second most important time of the year. More significant for us, was Easter, because that was when Spring Harvest occurred.

Spring Harvest is a yearly Christian conference for all denominations, that lasts a whole week, with programmes for all ages. The internet describes it as, ‘An interdenominational evangelical conference and gathering in the United Kingdom that started in 1979.’

There are worship sessions, teachings sessions, times of prayer and reflection, workshops, family services, children & youth programmes and the all-important selling of Christian merchandise.

Our bookshop chain was commissioned by the organisation to set up a large stall each year in the foyer of the conference venue. From early morning to late evening, we would sell to delegates, all kinds of products from our stock list. Items like T-shirts which were slow to sell in the high street, would be swiped from of the display stands by young people who did not ordinarily frequent the shops. Children’s gifts and greeting cards were also on demand at these events. The books that were prominently displayed, would be the ones authored by the guest speakers and singers who were working at the particular venue (Minehead or Skegness) for that year.  At the side of the stall, book signings would take place and people would flock to the tables in droves to get an up-close glimpse of the famous singer, band or speaker.

Spring Harvest brought in more revenue than the rest of the year put together, including Christmas sales, so, for our C.E.O., this event was literally a Godsend.

For many years, Head Office would ask each branch to provide volunteers to take a week out of their normal shop duties, to go along to one of the Spring Harvest venues and serve. The main tasks were, doing set-up, operating the tills, counting the money and doing pack-down at the end of the week. As it generated such a massive profit, the demand for more volunteers increased. Eventually, it was no longer an optional decision and staff were told that if they were chosen, they had to go. This meant leaving families behind and travelling to the seaside for one week.

I was asked to volunteer and was excited because the only Christian conference I had ever attended was, Bognor Bible Week; but that was organised by the Elim Pentecostal organisation and was therefore, less multi-denominational. This meant that there wouldn’t be as many people falling on the floor like dominoes during the service, and a larger ratio of white people to black: more like, 80:20. I was not told what to expect, so I was totally unaware of what duties I would be undertaking.

After a 125 mile train journey, I arrived at the Skegness venue and was asked to help with setting up the bookstall. There was just a large empty space with a few tables and shelves scattered around, and myself and the rest of the team were handed boxes of merchandise to sort and price up.

It was a mammoth task and I didn’t feel too well. Unbeknown to me, my body was having an allergic reaction to some powerful antibiotics I had taken the week before. My skin was slowly becoming covered in large, red, itchy blotches.

I soldiered on, and after an exhausting day, our stall was ready for business.

Ophelia, who was the girl designated to manage the makeshift shop, had somehow discovered that I used to work in a bank, so I was asked to do extra tasks. This meant working on the tills from early morning to late evening with break in between for lunch.

However, my first job on day of opening, was to set up the book signing table for the famous Christians that were due to be swamped by adoring fans as soon as it hit 9.00am.

American writer, Jeff Lucas, was to be the star of the show that year. I had never read any of his books, nor heard him preach, but it was well known that this man was funny. His most popular book in our shop was called, Lucas on Life and I got the impression his take on the world was similar to that of Adrian Plass.

As soon as he arrived, he was cracking jokes and seemed remarkably relaxed about the impending crowd that was due to descend upon him. I showed appreciation of his jocularity by joking along with him, and made a mental note to ensure I grabbed a copy of his book, so that I could get the full benefit of his humour. To date, I have yet to do so.

Years later, I did however, attend an evening of comedy when he visited my church with Adrian Plass. It was called, The Seriously Funny Tour. Now, I loved Adrian Plass, not just for his humour, but his serious writing also. His story called, The Visit had made me cry like a baby when I was young, and I have read, Broken Windows, Broken Lives, five times.

Given that I had gleaned a glimpse of Jeff Lucas’s amusing nature at Spring Harvest, I had assumed that this evening was going to be one of laughter and joviality. It wasn’t. Three quarters of the people in the room were old-time fans of both men and had travelled from other churches and towns just to see them both perform together. They did laugh. But like me, many did not. My young daughter was with me and embarrassingly, the only child in the room. This gave Adrian Plass reason to tell rude jokes and I winced on my seat. I came out of the auditorium thinking the show should be re-named, The Seriously Unfunny Tour.

I don’t think it was totally their fault. When one describes themselves as funny, they are setting themselves up for causing disapointment. Their managers were probably the ones who marketed them as such, especially as individually, they had a reputation of making people howl with laughter – maybe they just weren’t as effective as a team. Nevertheless, I think that is why I have never bothered pursuing, Lucas On Life. I may try and borrow a copy from the library one day, just to see what the fuss is about.

Well…despite the disappointing evening with the two boring comedians, nothing could have been as unfunny as what happened to me on the first night after the customers had gone to bed.

At close of business round about 8pm, Ophelia and I emptied the tills, bagged up the money and took it away to be counted, checked, and checked again, before being entered into a paying-in book. Three men helped us with the counting. The notes, coin, cheques, credit and debit card receipts were then stuffed into several night safe boxes. By this time, it would be approaching midnight. One of the men and I, then drove to the town centre to place the money into the local bank’s night safe.

But on this first night, a money mountain was born and the shock of it was probably what caused me to end up dashing to the doctors two days later.

Having worked mostly on the tills during my time at the bank, I was used to counting coin and placing the correct amounts into a coin bag. On my first evening, ten minutes before we closed the shop, I was asked to gather most of the coin from each till and throw it into a large sack. This was not good enough for me and my pedantic side kicked in, ensuring that each different denomination of coin went into a different container.

When the five of us entered the counting room, we began placing the coin bags on the table and three gentlemen and I, started grabbing bags according to the denomination we desired to count first. I chose the pennies because they were the most fiddly, and I wanted to get the hardest job out of the way first. Suddenly, Ophelia started pulling at the bags and emptying them out all at once. The four of us stared in horror while we witnessed a mighty mix-up. I wanted to shout,

“Hey, what are you doing? These have been sorted already and you’re mixing them up again!”

I stared in disbelief as our metal mountain became one giant mess. By the time the last bag was emptied onto the table, I could hardly see the man opposite me. I looked at Ophelia who seemed unperturbed by her crime. The two men to my right had their heads down and all I could see of the third one was his nose dotting about between some 20 pence pieces.

I was so angry that I began wondering if my blotches were going to spread to my face. It took absolutely ages for us to sort it all out.

We did not get to the night safe until after midnight and did not roll into to bed until 12.20am.

Later on in the morning, I awoke to more confusion. I was lodging with 6 other female volunteers in a chalet on the site, but because I had not been given a timetable, I was unaware of what was going on. I really hadn’t a clue. Nothing had been communicated to me at any stage, so I assumed I would be doing exactly what my housemates did.

The television in the living room was wired-up to the live services so that we could watch what was happening in some of the venues. While we were eating breakfast, the girls mentioned that if they had worked the evening before, then they had the morning off and would not be required back on the tills until the afternoon.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“Because we’ve done it before. We all worked here last year.” said a German girl called Judit.

“Oh,” I said, feeling relieved. “I’ll watch one of the live services then go down about 11am to see if they need any extra help.”

A few minutes later, the phone rang, and it was Ophelia.

“Where are you?” she exclaimed.

“Er…I’m just having breakfast. I’m at the chalet.”

“But it’s ten past nine! You’re supposed to be on the tills!” she screamed.

“Oh sorry,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed and sad that I might be misunderstood as being lazy. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

When I arrived, I was ushered to one of the 8 tills and set to work. I tried to ask what was expected of me and when I was supposed to get a break during the week, but the answer came back.

“You are supposed to be on all the time.”

I was confused but didn’t dare ask why. I’m not always that assertive and sometimes I just put my tail between my legs and keep quiet. So, I bit my lip and resigned myself to the fact that I was destined to do 12 hour shifts for next 7 days.

In the evening, I grabbed one of the counting guys and told him how flabbergasted I was at what Ophelia had done the night before. His face lit up,

“Me too! That was just ridiculous! I didn’t know what to say so I just joined in, but I thought it was crazy! Right, there is no way that is going to happen again tonight. We are going to keep the coin in their bags and count them individually!”

I praised the Lord and thanked him that I had an advocate. Manager or not, Ophelia wasn’t going to get away with making our job ten times harder that it needed to be.

Before we began, I decided to be honest and tell Ophelia what we thought.

“Oh sorry!” she said, “I just didn’t think. It never occurred to me that they had already been sorted. And I guess I tipped them out so quickly, that it would not have made much difference if you had all spoken up.  I promise I won’t do that again!”

Despite this hiccup, I loved the job and the whole atmosphere. It was tiring, but fun.  I don’t remember collapsing from exhaustion, so common sense tells me that I must have been given some time off eventually and I have just forgotten. However, the only day off I do remember, began with me sat staring at the walls of a doctor’s waiting room.

I ended up having to dash to their onsite doctors surgery to get some cream for my rash, which had become so inflamed by then, that I was beginning to look contagious. I had never seen so many people buy so much stuff and I did not want to be the one to ruin it all. I would never live it down if customers began running out of the shop screaming, “Leper!”

Head Office was bound to get wind of it and make me recompense their lost revenue out of my own wages. Afterall,

“We are a charity.”

I couldn’t believe it –  the room was so full of patients that it took 3 hours before a medical practitioner called me into his office.

On first arrival at the surgery, I had looked around wondering why so many sick people had come to Spring Harvest. Were they expecting one of the preachers to conduct a healing service? Didn’t they realise they were at the wrong event for that? There weren’t many charismatic preachers on the line-up. I thought that maybe I should go down to the beach and try dipping in the sea seven times. But then, I thought that maybe others had already done that and that was why they were unwell – it was the UK after all.

To date, Spring Harvest is still running and thousands of Christians from all around the country are being blessed by this conference.

It’s probably thanks to this event why our chain of shops remained in business for as long as they did.

Now I’m off to the library to see if a man called Jeffrey can make me laugh. Despite my previous disappointment, I’m still hopeful. Any book with a cover that contains a jack-in-the-box sporting a blue Mohican, must be at least a little bit amusing.

Unfortunately, our bookstore chain never survived. The company went into liquidation and all 41 stores closed. Twenty-six of our branches went into administration and the remaining fifteen were sold off to various Christian retailers.  It is sad that in many towns, there are hardly any more Christian bookshops on the high street.

Customers can no longer catch a piece of peace at lunchtime. It was more than just hearing uplifting songs as you entered a shop.

It was about relationships, caring, listening, understanding, encouraging and promising to pray for those who were feeling anxious. It was about asking after someone’s welfare and rejoicing with them when their prayers were answered.

It was about recommending certain titles and giving advice when you thought something was appropriate for their needs.  

It was about letting them feel it was their second home by providing a state-of-the-art coffee machine and a comfy corner for them to relax, with no pressure that they had to leave.

It was about letting them sing loudly and out-of-tune, at the listening post.

It was about having the opportunity to connect with non-Christian delivery drivers, postmen and people wandering in off the street looking for directions.

It was about being able to display the word of the Lord in a public window and getting to know people from all different walks of life and denominations.  

It was about giving the gospel to those with no hope and comforting those who had no money to buy anything, but just visited us because they were broken.

You cannot get any of that online.

As I write these last few lines of my journey back in time, we are in the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. All over the world, most high street shops are closed. Many will never re-open. For those that do, I fear that any remaining Christian bookshops will not be among them.

My own church has a bookshop not far from the town centre and I am praying that with a large coffee shop attached, it will be one that remains available to the public forever.

But for now, I have reached the end of my journey. Thank you for travelling with me. I have laughed and cried and laughed again.

I am putting down my pen and sending you best wishes as I say goodbye…

for…

 …Jemima has no more bibles to sell, and I have no more tales to tell.

For those of you who are still in the Christian retail sector, what an exciting time for you all! Especially the ladies! If I was in a shop right now, I’d be grabbing every female customer and showing her the 21 gorgeous bibles from the “Inspire” collection, the whole stack of colouring books from “Christian Art” and “Tyndale House”, and the amazing “Art of Life Bible”. The beautiful products that are coming out of Christian publishing houses today are simply breath-taking; and no, none of them have put me on commission to say that.

Back when I was in retail, bible journaling was not a well-known hobby and most fancy bibles were only fancy on the outside. Yes, we had bibles with metal covers, suede and sequins, but apart from a few pretty flowers, there was not as much inner artwork as we have in this generation.

How blessed we are to also have online bible applications and an amazing variety of plans, study guides and topics we can utilise at our own pace. I particularly love apps like “YouVersion”, where one can create their own bible verse pictures to send to a loved-one.

Many people struggle with the fact that technology has overtaken the blessing of being able to wander into a Christian bookstore and just browse in an atmosphere of joy.

If you are someone who has the advantage of still having access to a Christian bookstore in your locality, my prayer for you is that it will at least remain for the duration of your life.

If you work in a physical Christian bookshop, my prayer for you is that the Lord will help you to see beyond the busy schedules, difficult customers and anything else that sways you, to see how magnificent it is to have the privilege of selling the best book that was ever written.

Many years ago, while I still worked for the bank, I was attending a wedding when I spotted a girl with whom I was vaguely acquainted. After the ceremony, she was standing by the door, holding a silver collection plate and guests were placing coins onto it.

“Hi Lucy!” I said. “I didn’t know you went to this church.”

“Oh yes, I’m the verger.” she replied.

I was stumped. I hadn’t a clue what a verger was. Was it someone who took people’s money of them? Was it someone who greeted parishioners at the door? Were they like a wedding planner who hung around to ensure everything went smoothly on the big day?

After changing jobs, I was soon to realise that there were many aspects of the Church of England that I was unfamiliar with.

Blooper 1

Like I stated in the “Staff” chapter, if Trudy wasn’t around when a customer came in for a candle, I would get extremely nervous. I had never attended a church that used candles and had no knowledge of anything remotely Anglican.

It may have helped to have had photographs on the counter for customers to point to, but even better would have been a cabinet displaying the vast array of wax items available. This is because churches often asked for candles in diameter and would then give us their request in fractions.

Trudy would confidently scribble fractions down and march upstairs to the attic to find the box that contained the correct candles.

Whenever I went to fetch a candle, I would stare at all the rows of boxes on the shelves and panic. I just didn’t know where to begin searching for the said item. Usually, I would make an intelligent guess and bring a choice of different sizes downstairs with me, in the desperate hope that one of them was the precise article they yearned for.  I often went back upstairs with the same amount I brought down.

“No, I said one and three eighths, not two and a quarter.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I checked all the boxes and these are the nearest size. Would you like to order one?”

A lady walked in on a sunny afternoon and asked me to fetch her a votive candle.

I didn’t know what votive meant. I asked for clarification.

“We are having a vigil. We want to use it for a service we are having on Sunday evening.”

I was none the wiser.

“You know – like the ones that are used for Christingles.”

I could feel tiny beads of perspiration breaking out under my fringe, as I did not know what a Christingle was either. I had heard people talk about Christingle services and I had a vague recollection that this was around the time of Christmas. But it was May. I thought about that lady whom Casper told me about on my first day and I wandered if this woman was thinking I was a little dense.

I imagined her leaning forward and saying,

“Didn’t you ever go to school Dear?”

Even though I asked the lady to describe the required candle in more detail, I must have stopped listening at the most vital point. Somewhere in her description she would have mentioned that the item she was after was only half an inch in diameter.

I trundled upstairs and scanned the rows of boxes. Aha! I was sure I spotted the correct one.

As I descended the last few steps down to the ground floor, the customer looked up at me and stared at my chest. Her mouth opened and remained in that position as she looked around the shop to see if perhaps, I was serving two customers at once. But no, my eyes were on her and I was clutching the product I thought she had asked for.

On placing the candle onto the counter, the poor lady’s legs buckled. I was smiling, happy that for once, I had got it right, but confused by her odd reaction. She clutched her stomach and let out the most enormous laugh – one even more raucous than Sophie’s.

“I wanted a Christingle…” she gasped. “…that’s a Paschal candle!”

I stared sadly at my 18 x 3-inch monstrosity that was obviously more than 6 times larger than what was requested. Later on, I learned that a Paschal candle is used at Easter and that Christingles were those tiny little things that kids push into oranges at Christmas. The thing I had selected would hardly fit inside a car, let alone a piece of fruit.

Blooper 2

I seemed to be developing a habit of confusing Christmas with Easter. Again, my Anglican ignorance came into play one early February when a customer asked,

“Have your books on Lent arrived yet?”

I have never attended a church which practiced Lent or studied the principles. I didn’t even know people wrote books about the subject. I thought that folk just gave up eating treats because they felt guilty, knowing that in 5 weeks’ time, they would be tucking into chocolate eggs.

My customer had used the correct word, but having just gotten over Christmas a few weeks before, I was thinking about all the Advent books we had distributed to churches two months previously. They had been eager to participate in detailed studies about this important time of the year in the Christian calendar. The word ‘Lent’ is similar in sound to ‘Advent’ and the word ‘Advent’, was still in my head.

So, I replied, “Oh, I’m deeply sorry but you’re far too early. They won’t be out until the third week in November.”

Looking back, I realise we should have provided chairs for our customers to sit on.  This would have helped considerably in times like these.

Thankfully, his stupefied expression prompted me to consider my words and work out what had gone wrong. I am thankful also, that I managed to rectify the situation before he needed that chair.

Blooper 3

We had a damages box where soiled or ruined items were placed. Anything that arrived from the warehouse worse for wear were immediately returned, but items on display would also become grubby from over-handling and dust. Twice a year, Casper would choose a time in the month when we would have a big sale, where everything in the damage’s boxes were marked down by 50%.

One day I received a call from a lady who wanted to know the prices of various bibles. She was particularly interested in the “NIV Study Bible”. I raced upstairs to obtain a copy, so that I could describe it to her in detail while on the phone.

She loved the description and was certain that this was the right bible for her, so she enquired about the price. Her voice quivered and dropped an octave as she declared that at, £39.99, it was way above her budget. I comforted her by saying that maybe a loved-one could buy her it for her as a birthday gift, or at least, put some money towards the cost. This was of no use to her, as her birthday was a long way off.

After the call ended, I felt sad for the lady and I prayed that God would bless her with the finances to be able to afford to buy the bible presently.

As I made my way back up to the first floor to put it back on its shelf, I stumbled up the stairs. It fell out of my hands and landed on its top two corners. I picked it up and surveyed the damage. Having fallen from such a height, both corners looked like an accordion where the hard cardboard had compacted into tiny ripples. What a shame! This was now too mutilated to be put back on display and I felt bad that this accident would be yet another incident that would affect our profits.

Then I remembered the customer. After discussing the situation with Trudy, we both agreed that this was a special case. Why make the lady wait until the next big sale?

I ran back downstairs, hoping that nobody else had used the phone so that I could trace the phone number of the last incoming call.

When the lady answered, I explained about my unfortunate stumble.

“…so, it is now classed as a damaged item. Would you be happy to own an NIV Study Bible that has its top two corners all bashed in?”

“Ooh yes! Yes, yes, yes! If that was the only thing that was wrong with it, it wouldn’t bother me at all.”

“Well then, it’s yours for £19.99.”

The squeals of “Thank you Jesus!” that I could hear from the other end of the line, made up for the guilt I had for being so clumsy. I thanked God for answering my prayer in record speed. It wasn’t answered in the way I had prayed, but it certainly blessed the lady just the same.

Blooper 4

Being the Multimedia Queen, the reps would leave me with posters of popular music artists to display in the shop.

Casper however, did not like the way these posters looked dotted around, and so he told me to leave the walls bare.

Therefore, most of them then ended up in the bin, or given away to customers if I knew they were a fan of the particular singer or group. One day, the Kingsway Music rep left me with an A3 size poster of Graham Kendrick and just for fun, I thought I’d put it up in our tiny staffroom.

None of my colleagues objected to this, nor made any comment about it at all, so it remained there for many months.

There had been a long-standing joke between Cammie and I over a certain secular TV celebrity, who I thought was cute. When I had first mentioned this, Cammie’s reaction had been so volatile, that it stirred me up to keep going on about him, just to tease her. It was entertaining watching her facial expressions each time his name came up in conversation.

“But you can’t like him, he’s not a Christian!” she would exclaim, appalled at my flippancy.

I didn’t fancy this guy at all, but I found it so funny watching her squirm and reel in horror at my apparent attraction to this man of the world.

One day, there was a report on the national news about this same guy being spotted frequenting brothels, and Cammie said to me with delight,

“Aha, you can’t like him now – he sleeps with prostitutes!”

Avoiding her gaze, I put on an air of complacency, shrugged my shoulders and simply replied, “So?”

She was suitably horrified and I walked off laughing to myself at how easy it was to wind her up.

Eventually, Cammie came to realise that I was just doing all this to tease her and appreciated the humour. However, in finding a random picture of this man in a magazine, I couldn’t resist the temptation to do one more naughty thing.

I brought it to work and put it up in place of Mr. Kendrick.

Like before, all my colleagues ignored the fact that there was a man staring down at them while munching on their sandwiches, and they never made a comment about its presence, but one morning, we had a visit from the area manager Archie, and just as he was leaving the staff room, he stopped, turned around and said:

“So…who fancies ******?”

I laughed while Trudy and Louise looked puzzled. Cammie however, so repulsed at the thought that Archie might think it was her, instantly replied:

“It’s Sharon!. Sharon fancies him. She put that poster up. I told her not to. He’s horrible isn’t he!”

It was the first time that I felt a little awkward about the situation, so I needed to diffuse to the  issue quickly so he wouldn’t think I was becoming a lukewarm drooler of a hunky heathen.

“Oh, it’s not been up for long.” I explained as casually as I could. “I had Graham Kendrick up before that and he was there for many months.”

Archie picked up his briefcase and peered at me over the top of his spectacles. With a tinge of joviality in his voice he said,

“You sad girl!” Then walked out the door.

I stood there feeling confused. Why was it sad to have a picture up of a well-known Christian singer who wakes up every morning singing, “Shine, Jesus Shine,” rather than one of a young man who likes to hang around the red light district in his spare time?

It took me a while to figure it out but when I did, I cringed and wailed.

“Agh! He thinks that having a poster up of a person means someone is attracted to them, like how mechanics have up calendars of scantily-clad models. Even worse, I declared that he’d been up for months! He must think I have an obsession and is in desperate need for counselling! Oh no, I hope he doesn’t refer me to Ellel Ministries!“

Everything in me wanted to phone Archie and say,

“I don’t have the hots for Graham Kendrick! You misunderstood what I said!”

But it was too late. My prank had backfired.

Cammie didn’t saying anything but her expression screamed,

“Serves you right!”

I ran upstairs and ripped the poster off the wall and threw it in the bin. There was no way I was going to continue sticking images of old men above the fridge, nor those of unregenerate celebrities.

I thought my colleagues believed me when I explained that it had all been a big joke. However, I am not sure the entire crew were convinced. A photograph of Billy Graham suddenly appeared in my in-tray.

Blooper 5

Whenever somebody came in requesting communion wine, the first question we would need to ask them was whether they required alcoholic or the non-alcoholic type.

I had asked this question many times, but this day, my mind was in overdrive. A young woman had requested two bottles and I was off to the attic to fetch them. Just before I mounted the stairs, I rattled off the usual question – or so I thought.

“Red or white?” I said.

She frowned and replied,

“Red!”

“Okay.” I answered joyfully and mounted the stairs.

Something didn’t feel quite right though. She was staring at me earnestly. It was a sort of half mocking, half-shocked glare.

Then I realised what had come out of my mouth.

After we both had a good chuckle at my faux pas, the lady admitted that she was wondering about my understanding of basic theology.

Of all the bloopers, I think you will agree with me when I say that this was the worst. Thankfully, on each occasion, my mistakes had been recognised and rectified before the customer had chance to leave the shop and tell the whole world what an idiot I was.

But it’s got me wondering. How many bloopers did I make that I am blissfully unaware of? Maybe, it is for the best that I do not know.

 

“Get over it!”

How many times have people said that when somebody is harping on about an issue that bugs them?

Cammie was very patient. I constantly whinged to her about the dreadful toilet area at work and she graciously listened. But I wasn’t satisfied. She was not giving me the sympathy I craved.

“You need to see it for yourself!” I urged.

Now, I’m not a diva. I’m happy to roll up my sleeves and get knee-deep in muck. I’ve endured mission trips where the only toilets amongst 150 campers were 6 outside hole-in-the-ground efforts where one could hear everything going on in the space next door. The doors were so low a tall person could walk past and wave. No seat, no flush, just a hole the size of a can of beans and the hope that your thigh muscles were strong enough to hold you in the squat position for the duration of your ablutions.

But this toilet room was in a league of its own.

One day when Cammie popped in to purchase a journal, I dragged her upstairs to the staff area.

“Casper won’t mind.” I said. “Burglars have wandered up here and been so traumatised, they’ve run back down and cleared us out of counselling books.”

As we walked past the unlockable lockers (we are a charity), I stopped by the entrance of the Room of Doom.

Cammie had glimpsed the ‘kitchen’ and pulled back, frightened by what she saw. I grinned with satisfaction. The emotion I had desired was soon to be displayed.

I pushed the toilet door open so she could get a good look, although she was already gagging at the sight of the ‘kitchen’s’ draining board.

She looked around the cubicle in silence then said in one of her high-pitched whispers,

“This is nothing like you described! It’s so much worse!”

Long pause.

“It’s Alcatraz!”

I was delighted that she not only had gone into the much-awaited hysteria, but she had blessed the wretched place with a most apt name.

As mentioned in the chapter about the staff, Cammie eventually ended up getting a job at the shop, but unless she was desperate, she avoided Alcatraz like the plague. She would dash off to use the facilities in MacDonald’s down the road.

I have seen pictures of Alcatraz prison – the ones with the lime green walls, and they look more inviting than what we had to face on a daily basis. Not to mention, these cells actually had a sink to wash your hands. Oh, did I not mention that? We had no sink.  The window behind the loo was high up and dirty – dark brown glass. Infront of the windows was a thick steel railing, like the ones one would see in a jail. Why anyone in the right state of mind would be tempted to enter this room from the outside is a question yet to be answered.

Outside of the cubicle was a filthy recess that contained a Belfast sink. I am not going to elaborate at this point for fear of venturing into too much negativity. Ha, you may well laugh and state that I am there already. Little do you know…

But my desire is not to shame anyone or point blame – just to say that the staff who dared place their mugs into this sink knew that it doubled-up as the sink for the toilet. I kept my mug in my locker and left everybody else to their own choices.

Casper had often complained to Head Office about the unhygienic situation.

In case you are wondering what all the fuss is about: Some residential houses have a loo with a separate sink area, but that sink is not then used for washing dishes. Also, this applies to a single family. Toilets are not supposed to open onto a kitchen area unless there are double doors and even in these cases, the toilet is supposed to have a sink inside the same cubicle. Common sense tells you that if somebody hasn’t got a sink in their toilet cubicle, the lock and door handle is always going to contain germs. This is not acceptable in a work situation, where as many as 14 are using the same toilet and then placing bacteria onto the kitchen taps.

Sorry to be a bore with my repetition, but the reply from Head Office was that they did not see this important enough to do anything about it and we should just praise the Lord and accept our lot because,

“We are a charity.”

For the rest of her time working at the shop, Cammie continued to escape to the yellow arches whenever she needed the toilet. This practice made her look like a suitable partner for Louise, for each time they worked together, Cammie would be seen dancing along with her. The two of them appeared to be the perfect duo, but in reality, Cammie was just desperate to visit McDonalds.

Despite my own restroom angst, I thank God for Alcatraz. It gives me good memories of a place where nobody apart from my colleagues could ever believe existed in the middle of a posh town. It also gives me fond memories of Cammie, who made me laugh even more than Casper did.

One of the best aspects of working at the shop was that there was a large variety of jobs to do and different skills to learn for each of them.

Good

We had two bookstands to fill with the month’s top ten bestselling titles. Similarly, we were given a list of the top 100 bestselling book titles and we had to display as many as we could, in a prominent place on the ground floor. This was updated by Head Office on a monthly basis and when we were sent the updates, our bookshelves were expected to reflect these changes.

It was a fearsome task because titles by the same author were supposed to be displayed together. Philip Yancy, Max Lucado and Joyce Meyer had many books on the list, but because they were of different sizes, and the widths of our shelves were different sizes also, the titles had to be scattered around. It was quite an assignment trying to make it look like it had some semblance of order and it would take Trudy and Casper up to 3 days to complete.

One day, Trudy suggested to Casper that the job be passed onto me. The two of them usually had other staff to rely on to cover the tills and serve customers while this job was being done. Casper agreed to Trudy’s suggestion but when he first asked me to do it, the job was already weeks overdue. Added to this, we were extremely short-staffed, so I was expected to serve customers while tackling a duty I had never done before.

I stood before the large, oddly sized bookshelf and stared at the books in disbelief.

I began talking to myself quietly:

“So…what normally takes one familiarised person to do in three days, with no extra duties, has to be done by clueless me, in one day, with a whole load of other jobs to do. Great!”

Just before Trudy went upstairs, she gave me a sweet smile and whispered,

“Bless you.”

It was not appreciated. I was furious.

As I flicked through a four-page document of titles, I decided that anger was going to get me nowhere. As much as I wanted to impose a form of asphyxiation on Trudy for, ‘dropping me in it’, I had to get a grip of the situation.

I thought back to times in the bank when my superiors would expect me to be in two places at once whilst producing an empty in-tray by the end of the day. I recalled the times I had put my own work on hold, to cover somebody’s desk so they could have a boozy two-hour lunch because it was their birthday. I had prayed. I had asked God for help. I had raised my faith to believe that God would not allow me to be given anything to do that I couldn’t handle with his assistance.

By this time, six customers were browsing and there was one heading towards the till. Each time I got inspiration about how to tackle the task, I would have to put my sheet down and serve somebody, losing all ideas to the back of my mind.

During a quieter spell, I rushed back to the bookshelf and took a deep breath,

“Lord, you know how unfair this feels. I haven’t a clue what I’m doing or where to begin! But you are sovereign and mighty, and I know wisdom comes from you. Forgive me for being angry. Help me to keep calm and trust in your providence. Please help me to not only get this job done properly, but in record time. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but I really need your help right now, please!”

All of a sudden, I felt the Holy Spirit say,

“Remove that book and put it there. Take that one from there and place it here. Swap those two rows around and put that one in the corner. Those over there need to go here. Look at the bottom row – it would look really good if all titles pertaining to that subject go down there. Those ones are too big for that side, so take these smaller ones and pop them into that space. Right, now move this to over there…”

Two and a half hours later, I was done.

On the way home, just before we reached the train station, Trudy turned to me and asked me how I managed to complete to job so quickly.

When I told her that it was the Lord who helped me, I think it sounded rather super-spiritual, but there is no way of explaining some things other than simply saying,

“I asked God to help me, and he did.”

It really was a miracle. There was no way I could have done any of it in my own strength. If I hadn’t prayed, I would have probably had a meltdown and thrown copies of “Run Baby Run” over my head like a juggler who’s been drugged. Several editions of, “The Purpose Driven Life” would have probably ended up landing on someone’s temple before I made a dash to the mezzanine balcony to successfully perform the leap that Casper hadn’t yet accomplished.  

But prayer works because we have a loving father who is concerned about the little things that annoy us, just as much as the biggies.

Looking back, I am so glad that Trudy and Casper made the decision that they did. I remember exactly how ridiculously hard this job was and therefore, I am reminded once again, of how good God really is.

Bad

Amongst the many other tasks there were to do, Louise and I found ourselves with an extra one. Discarding books on Hinduism. I don’t mean books explaining what Hinduism is about, I mean books promoting it. When Head Office first began sending us books for the bargain basement, we assumed they could just be placed on shelves, tables and in baskets. But we soon discovered that every single one needed to be vetted, for, the occasional book was against Christianity in its promotion of another religion or idea. We promptly binned them but did not understand where our superiors were getting these titles from.

Lou and I also had a bit of a problem with the Apocrypha. We knew that some Christian scholars used it as a reference book, but to us, our stance was that the bible is all the reference one needs. Being ever aware that God warned mankind to not add to the words of the bible, Louise and I were particularly disturbed at the bible versions like the NRSV, that included the Apocrypha within them. There was nothing we could do about those, but for the individual Apocryphas, I would convulse with laughter as I watched Louise hide them behind the large-print hardbacks.

Ugly

Every 3 months, a large box would arrive that was ushered to the first floor. I would look at it with trepidation. I knew that the time had come. Inside that box were the ugliest, scariest books that I’d ever seen. No, they were not demonic – they weren’t destined for the bargain basement. These books were for the learned. They were for people obsessed with theology. They were the most doctrinal books known to man. They were… the “Nota Bene”.

_{(These were theology books sent to us by a religious book company and their catalogue was called, Nota Bene, so the staff collectively gave all those books that same name.)}

A colleague would shout across to Casper to let him know they had arrived, and it would send shivers down my spine. Who is it that determines that books for bible scholars should be so ugly? The front covers contained pictures of matchstick men on a cross turning up their eyes, pictures of uninteresting architecture, depressing landscapes or unattractive shapes. The colours of the dust jackets were usually a boring brown, or a dull grey. They were also usually hardback, very large and extremely heavy.

These books were sought after by the town’s pastors, curates, theologians, wannbe preachers, vicars in training and those with a deep interest in Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew and Greek.

One of the most popular titles was, “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem. Other titles were penned by authors who had a penchant for printing the first two initials of their name on the front cover. Thus, we had books by NT Wright, JI Packer, RA Torrey, FB Meyer, AW Tozer, FF Bruce, DM Lloyd-Jones, AW Pink and RC Sproul. The mothers of Karl Barth and John Murray are probably regretting not being more adventurous.

There was a young couple who visited us regularly. She had the longest hair I’d ever seen. He was Nota Bene’s most devoted fan and would spend a fortune on the books each quarter. He was a lovely man who was always had a cheerful disposition and he enjoyed blessing us each Christmas with delicious boxes of Panettone.

I used to enjoy watching his face light up whenever Casper told him the next lot of books were ready. The sight of the front covers obviously did not faze him one bit, but I often wondered what his dear wife thought about them. She was always rather quiet, and I wondered if it was owing to visual trauma, after all, his house was full of these books!

For me, one of the scariest titles is a book called, Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology. On the front cover, it has a ghostlike face of what I assume is the man himself, drawn in grayscale. He looks like his right eye has been blinded and that if you come too close, he will slice your ears off. Thankfully, I do not remember seeing this book amongst our Nota Bene collection, and if I had, I probably would have battled bouts of insomnia.

Go on, ‘Google it’ – you know you want to.

Apart from The Gaithers and anything black gospel, our all-round most popular selling music was an Irish lady called Marilla Ness, Celtic singer Máire Brennan, composer of choral music, John Rutter, anything by Hillsongs, and CD compilations from yearly events such as Soul Survivor, New Wine, Spring Harvest, The Mandate and Grapevine.

I liked Casting Crowns and Phillips, Craig & Dean. Casper liked Michelle Tumes. In fact, apart from Máire Brennan, she was the only singer he did like and was therefore very relieved when I was asked to take over from him as the multimedia specialist.

In my teenage days, I had been Amy Grant’s greatest fan and I had also loved Clay Crosse and Sandi Patti. I then moved onto Point of Grace, Gary Chapman and Cindy Morgan.

Being black, however, there was pressure on me to stereotypically like the music of everybody negro.

There was no confusion about what expectations our customers had. I could just about tolerate Christian reggae and Hip-hop, but this was not enough for our ethnic possé. I was expected to be heavily into the Black Gospel genre, which I did not like at all.

I hated the sound of their keyboards resting on one note in vibrato and I could not bear the way Afro Caribbean singers tended to strain out a syllable so that every short word would take fifteen seconds to sing.

To date, I have seen the error of my ways and there are a few gospel singers who I appreciate, especially, Ce Ce Winans. I also love Nigerian worshippers such as David G, Jimmy D Psalmist, Joe Praize, Mercy Chinwo, Nathaniel Bassey, Chris Shalom and Minister. Also, who doesn’t love Hezekiah Walker’s, “Every Praise”?

But back then, I disliked everything that had that native sound and I had nothing like it in my music collection.

I would complain whenever Integrity Music, Authentic Media or Kingsway categorised certain singers as ‘Black Gospel’, because of their ethnicity, rather than their musical style.  I loved Ron Kenoly and Nicole Mullen. Neither of them sang ‘black’ yet in the catalogues, there they were sitting in the same section as Kirk, BeBe, Israel, Donnie, Fred, Deitrick, Marvin, Smokie, Kurt, Dottie, Byron, Darwin, and Andrae and The LCGC.                              

When their new titles arrived, I would place Nicole under the section entitled “Female Singers” and Ron under “Hosanna Music”.

At the end of the day, inevitably, I would find that Nicky and Ronnie and been surreptitiously re-homed somewhere between Alvin and Yolanda.

I didn’t feel it was right to reveal my true feelings. It made sense to focus on the two most popular genres while at the same time, not to let on that I wasn’t keen on either of them. I was warming to The Gaithers after noticing how dedicated they were to magnifying the Lord and how well their videos were put together, but I didn’t appreciate them half as much as I do now.  Best sellers deserved a prominent place and the buyers of them deserved to have a sales assistant who at least appeared to be as enthusiastic about their favourite music as they were.

Gospel lovers were not the slightest bit interested where Bill and Gloria were travelling to and why they were always homecoming, but never actually arriving. Likewise, Gaither fans wanted to own all of Bill & Gloria’s DVDs so they could pretend they were sitting in a circle with the gang, singing about the joys of Heaven.

So, I had to be shrewd. Very shrewd. Our customers needed someone to know what the fantastic new releases were, and they needed that someone to be ecstatic about it. But pretending was hard. I liked Mary Mary’s ever-so-popular, popular, “Shackles”, so I played it often, hoping it might throw people off the scent, and nobody would realise that I was actually into ‘white worship.’

I may be deluded when I say that I managed to fool them quite well. Maybe they all knew I was a fraud and laughed about how pathetic I looked when trying join in with their enthusiasm. But I do know that there was one guy who was suspicious of me from the very beginning.

Whenever he asked me a question about an artist, he would peer at me through his glasses and squint. One day, a few weeks before I went off on maternity leave, he was squinting at me so much that I could no longer see his eyes. I had done my usual acting and had tried to be in a rave about the upcoming new gospel releases. Then it happened. He glared at me and said,

“So, who is your favourite gospel artist then?

I quickly named the most popular person I could think of:

“Oh. Well Kirk Franklin’s quite good, isn’t he?”

He wasn’t going to let me get away that lightly.

“So, what is your favourite track of his?“

I picked one of his most popular songs.

“Stomp.” I said hurriedly avoiding his gaze.

But alas, I had made a fatal error. ‘Stomp’ had been released many years before and was now quite old.

“What about a more recent one?”

I was beginning to panic and wondered if I should feign the early stages of labour.

“Well, I like er…er… other artists too.”

“Such as?” He raised an eyebrow. This guy was definitely on to me.

Thankfully, my husband was a long-time fan of Ce Ce Winans, so I was familiar with her songs.

“Well, I love Ce Ce ya know. “Throne Room” is well good innit?”

Why I tried to ‘talk black’, was beyond me. Living in an area that is predominantly Pakistani, I ended up sounding more like an Asian teenage boy. I couldn’t do a Caribbean accent if my life depended on it. I couldn’t even do that ‘fan thing’ properly. You know – when ethnic women are trying to show contempt or disapproval of something, they spread their fingers out in a fan shape, and wave it near their neck. My poor attempts always made me look like I was trying to dry my fingernails or swat a fly.

I was getting nervous. I shifted from foot to foot hoping that his eyes would do the same and move away from my direction. They didn’t.

“Umm…” he retorted. He picked up his goods and said goodbye, not before taking one last narrow-eyed glare at me as he descended the stairs.

I had managed to sell a great number of gospel CDs by forcing myself to be a little interested in something I really couldn’t bear. I wondered if this guy thought I was a coconut – brown on the outside, white on the inside. I wanted to call him back and say,

“Hey, I don’t have a problem with my race. I like some Christafari.  I have a Tonex album. My parents love Mahalia Jackson.”

But he was gone. Off to spill the beans and reveal to all about the imposter that I really was.

Repentance Review

It is never good to be deceptive, even if it is to help boost your employer’s sales. I realise that I should have been more honest with our customers. Maybe they could have taught me some things about that genre which would have helped me to appreciate it more.

I still love a large variety of Christian music and I am also pleased to say that before I ceased working at the shop, I eventually developed a love for The Gaithers, even if I couldn’t persuade Casper to.

Like I mentioned earlier, I have developed a deep appreciation for many Nigerian worshippers so, all in all, I feel less of a coconut these days. Besides, my arms are not that hairy.

He always looked like he was posing for a photo shoot, but to actually call him a ‘poser’ would be cruel because not only is that a negative judgement, but he’s not here to defend himself.

I settled for ‘Mafia Man’, not because he wore a hat with a white band or spoke with a thick gangster accent, but because he looked Italian, wore a dark suit and never entered the shop without pair of sunglasses in his hand. No matter the weather or season, the shades were his close companion. There was nothing wrong with his eyes, I’m sure. Our bright lights were more dazzling than the dismal streets outside, yet he never once squinted or put them on to look at something.

He was a tall young man in his late twenties but acted rather odd. Whether this was to draw attention to himself or not, I cannot say. But if it was attention he was after, he got it because he was very good-looking. It appeared that he knew it, and that was what made people stare.

He came in weekly, without fail, but to my knowledge, he never bought anything. He would just wander slowly in a circle around the 3 square display tables, looking down at the goods, but not touching them. Despite being young, he never perused the music and neither did he ever venture upstairs.

After his usual trip around the tables, he would leave the shop and turn left, walking past our large window. While striding ahead, a ritual would take place whereby he would put on his sunglasses with one hand while placing the opposite hand in his pocket. It would be raining, cloudy, dark or snowing, but ‘Mafia Man’ never failed to do his catwalk strut with dark lenses in front of his eyes.

There’s nothing more annoying than knowing that somebody who appears to be wanting attention knows they have succeeded in getting it. With this in mind, I tried not to watch him when he did his exiting the shop ritual. But it was hard. I knew that his peripheral vision would pick up on the fact that I was standing by the till turning my head to the left and watching him walk off down the street. So, I would put my left hand on my cheek with my fingers just above my eyebrow, and peer through them, not-so-surreptitiously. Usually, the better option was to swivel around 180 degrees, to face the computer software that was displayed on the wall behind me. This, he noticed too, I’m sure, especially as Ilumina boxes weren’t that interesting.

As time went by, his hairstyle changed from a floppy fringe and short sides, to a slicked-back shiny pompadour, with the nape area so long it could have been placed into a small ponytail. This did not suit him at all, and it only served to make him more worthy of his new name, because now he looked like a godfather in training.

As no purchases or queries were ever made, I only ever had one conversation with him. That day, there was no-one else on the ground floor and just as a full circuit of the first table had been completed, he uncharacteristically decided to give me eye contact and ask what church I attended. His air of mysteriousness dropped as he proved he could carry-on a conversation without checking his appearance in the reflective surfaces nearby. We chatted for a while and I felt rather guilty for assuming he ‘loved himself’, for he was quite gentle-natured.

Casper suddenly emerged from the basement, and the ‘Italian gangster’ ended our conversation abruptly. He quickly became ‘Danny Marcini’ again and made his way to the door. After removing his trusty shades from his pocket, he headed up the road back to Sicily.

Repentance review

Isn’t it foolhardy how we can judge people by their appearances when in reality, they are nothing like we imagine? I wonder how I would feel if I knew that somebody was making incorrect assumptions about me by the way I dress or by my manner.

We do not really know what is going on in someone’s heart and we often are completely wrong about how we think they would be in any given situation. One year during the stocktaking week, I remember being mildly offended when Casper admitted to me that he deliberately did not pair me up with his father-in-law, because he feared I would be too much for him.

“What do you mean?” I had said defensively.

He thought that I would become over-familiar and distract him from his calculations. He thought that I would start going on about Jesus in between calls of ‘£6.99.’  I knew I would not have been like that at all, and besides, I would have been too busy trying to make sure my elderly companion did not trip over the wires. I frowned at Casper but realised there was no use in defending myself; we all misjudge people from time to time and it is something we constantly have to work on with the help of the Lord.

I’m sure that our non-buying friend had a perfectly good reason for acting the way he did. Maybe he was one of the many customers who enjoyed visiting the shop in their lunch break just to feel the Spirit’s presence.

I will never know, but one thing I do know is, I was guilty of doing the very thing Jesus warned us about: “Do not judge others or you will be judged also.”

The situation with the drunken men was becoming increasingly worse. Almost every day we had to deal with an unwanted disruption, and it began to feel like the devil was deliberately sending people in to cause us distress.

I asked Casper about the possibility of us having an extra prayer meeting after the shop was closed, and he said that he had been considering the same thing.

He decided that it would be good to have some back-up and mentioned that his mother-in-law was a prayer warrior.

“When she prays, things happen!” he said, with his eyes widening.

“Really?” I was hoping he would elaborate. He didn’t disappoint.

Oh yes,” he continued, “once she asked God to send someone to Timbuktu and he did! They really went to Timbuktu!”

I could see why he was so keen to have Ellie’s mum join us in intercession. With results like that, we could clear the whole town of drunks and hopefully she will be on such top form that Jemima and the Prince of Egypt would disappear with them.

I was excited. We were all so fed up having to call the security guards. The Holy Spirit was the best guard and he had power! I couldn’t wait for this session.

When the special day arose, Casper locked the doors and turned off the main lights. Trudy, Louise, Sophie, Casper, Ellie, her mother and I, gathered together in a rough circle on the ground floor. Before we began to pray, I glanced at this formidable lady and wondered if she also had the power to read people’s minds. I quickly recapped in my head all the things I had said and done within the last few days to check if I had any unconfessed sin latched to my soul. I didn’t want her to suddenly point at me and exclaim,

“You! You laughed when that porcelain statue broke because you thought it was ugly. And you ate a priest’s wafer!”

We began to pray, and it felt like things were moving in the heavenlies. Ellie’s mum was indeed a mighty prayer warrior and it was great to have her join us for this serious moment of binding, loosing and deep supplication. But it was also so intense that I wondered if I would suddenly feel the urge to burst out laughing. There had been times when I had attended a funeral and just because people were so sombre and sad, I had developed an unexpected impulse to giggle.

I dreaded the thought of what my colleagues would think of me should I do such a thing. I imagined them casting out spirits of mockery, complacency, flippancy and lack of self-control. If this happened, would I fall to the floor and start foaming at the mouth and writhing like a snake?

I bit my lip just in case.

As the prayer session continued, I forgot about my fears and got really into ‘standing in the gap’ for our shop. We prayed for customers, Head Office, the staff at the warehouse and for the particular offenders who gave us trouble each week. We rebuked the devil and claimed the peace of God over our building.

Oh, we were on fire!

When we reached the mezzanine floor, Ellie’s mum grabbed the bannister and began rubbing it lightly with her hands. She looked down then turned towards Casper and asked,

“Has anyone ever tried to jump from here?”

“No. Only me.” He replied.

She glared at him crossly and ignored the remark.

Trudy and Louise laughed a little, but Sophie and I were in hysterics.

I don’t remember what happened after that. It completely ruined the moment for me. I had mental images of Casper hiding in the store cupboard until Trudy finished re-stocking her card display, then sneakily climbing up onto the balcony and jumping off with his arms outstretched. I then imagined a loud thud as he hits the floor and begins cursing when he realises he is still very much alive.

It felt good to come together to seek the Lord’s blessing like this and even though the problems didn’t go away entirely, we were pleased we had made the effort and trusted God to work on our behalf.

Thankfully, Casper never attempted to leap from the balcony, but I cannot promise you that his desire to do so, ever went away.

The first years of stocktaking were performed when the shop was closed. We would take one or two days and finish within the timescale given by Head Office. Extra volunteers were called in and everybody had a pleasant time working together to get the job done. It all changed the year Head Office announced that all shops were to stocktake while being open and that they were expected to maintain the same standard of customer service. The reason given was that we were losing too much money while being closed.

Up until then, adding machine cords were loosely taped to the floor because we all knew where to stand and when to jump over. This could not be done with customers around – it was health and safety risk. Customers would be now walking into a shop that was full of people standing around with adding machines in their hands. Even with everything now taped down, it was still a tripping hazard and often children were in the store also.

One of the people in the group of pairs would be pulling books and CDs from shelves and turning everything else upside down to take note of the price, before shouting it out to their partner who would be adding them up.

Owning to the need for complete accuracy, spoken words often needed to be clarified, verified and checked all over again. This made each floor quite noisy and not the ideal atmosphere for a browsing shopper. They often felt guilty for having to interrupt us to ask a question or even to purchase an item. And that was no easy task either! All purchasing customers had to tell the cashier whether the item they were buying had been counted or not. If they were on the first floor, we would say something like,

“Can you please tell the cashier downstairs that the book in your right hand has been counted, but the one in your left has not? Thanks.”

Through no fault of their own, some people got the instructions muddled up and said the opposite. Also, because we were open for business, the customer was under no obligation to dash straight to the downstairs till and therefore, they had every right to continue browsing before making their payment. Often, they would pause on the mezzanine floor to look at the cards. By the time they reached the ground floor they had forgotten what they had been told.  Because of this, we had discrepancies in our final figures, and I don’t think that our accounting was ever accurate.

All in all, having to do such an important task while continuing to be open for business, seemed ludicrous. We respected the authority of our head office but did not agree with their reasoning. If anything, it probably hindered sales in the long run, because it was a bad example to customers: our attention was not fully on them, the shop was in a mess with some shelves totally covered by a cloth, they could clearly see it was a tripping hazard and it must have seemed very unprofessional that we were relying on them to tell us whether or not an item had been counted.

After a particularly gruelling stocktaking Friday, Casper was not looking forward to the weekend because we were not making sufficient progress and it meant he had no choice but to ‘forget the Sabbath day and keep it working’. He had even been encouraged to work on a Sunday by Archie and the pressure to succeed was heavy upon his shoulders.

I felt sorry for Casper because Archie seemed to revel in the fact that his shop was doing better than Casper’s, and his shop made more profit.

What tipped Casper over the edge to give up his ‘Sabbath rest’, was when Archie was boasting about how on top of things he was and then casually commented that it was because he sometimes works on a Sunday. As soon as he said this, I could feel the guilt digging into Casper’s spirit. The kind of guilt that accuses one of not being as diligent as others. The kind of guilt that says, ‘You are lazier than me.’

Archie ended with the sentence,

“Not that I’m telling you to do that of course.”

But the damage was already done. Yet again, the knife had been dug in deep and Casper had no choice but to prove his dedication to the job by giving up his precious day of rest.

On the Saturday of stocktaking week, Anthony wanted to have fun and decided to get up to no good. He took it upon himself to deface a photo Casper’s lovely wife, Ellie. On the ground floor computer, he began delving into files that he had no business being in and he came across a few private photos of Casper’s. They were lovely snaps and Ellie looked radiant; nevertheless, Casper came back into work on the Monday to discover he was now married to a red-eyed woman with black teeth and a ginger beard.

Anthony hadn’t meant to offend; he just didn’t realise he’d gone too far. However, this act of disrespect had pushed Casper ‘off the brink’ and quite understandably, he wasn’t in the right place for suffering fools gladly.

One by one, customers poured into the shop, hopping over wires and feeling a little ignored because we were not our usual attentive selves. My banking days had installed in me the importance of greeting customers as soon as they entered and to ensure they felt they were being given appropriate attention.

But here, in order to concentrate on the calling and counting, this was impossible. We couldn’t be shouting out prices and calling over to customers at the same time. We couldn’t put down our adding machines and go over to them.

One of our regulars was a lady who was as large in personally as she was in size. A few months earlier she had looked at me critically and asked if I had lost weight. One should not say such things to somebody who comes from a genetically skinny family. Yes, I was small with twig limbs, but did not appreciate this being pointed out. To me, this is pressing a button I do not want to be pressed. Tell me I look like I’ve gained weight and I’ll be your best friend. As weird as this is to most people, all natural ‘skinnies’ understand this.  Just as I was about to answer her, she glared at me intensely and interjected loudly by shouting,

“Eat!”

To say I was angry is an understatement.  This was one of those moments when I knew I had surpassed Casper in the quest to murder a customer.  I forgave her, eventually, as God instructs us to, but I was never keen on being around her after that.

This lady decided that today she would give us a visit. She had always loved attention and quickly caught on that she could easily have the upper hand. We were too busy for silly questions and she knew it. We were too busy for any questions at all, so she decided she would ask us as many as she could think of. My sleeves had been rolled up, so I quickly pulled them down so she could not notice my bony elbows. At one point, I realised that her feet were near a strip of cord from an adding machine. “Umm, should I unstick the tape?” God jolted my conscience and I remembered that I had already forgiven her, so those kinds of thoughts were not to be entertained.

She came to the counter and asked me to look up an item on our computer. Casper was busy working on the desk opposite and clenched his teeth. He knew about the previous incident I had had with her, and like me, he had always hated her loudness. She picked up on the tense atmosphere and seemed delighted. As I swivelled round on the stool to tell her the price of the item she was enquiring about, she bellowed another question at me. Then another and another. And another still. I kept my calm, but I could feel Casper getting very edgy.

In her hands was one of our promotional brochures and she was on the psychology page.

“Umm…” she mused, “Getting… Anger… Under… Control…, by Neil T. Anderson. Sounds like a good book. Yes, I’ll have one of those. Did you hear that? I want you to order me a copy of the one you’ve just looked up and this anger book by Neil Anderson.”

Casper could stand it no longer. Naturally, it is of no concern to a customer that the staff of the shop they are in, are very busy. The fact that they are trying to concentrate on their stocktake is of little consequence to them. If we are open, they quite rightly expect to be served, even if they are being demanding.

But our manager was struggling with this fact and could only see the mounting paperwork that was left to sort out after we had all gone home.

He fixed his eyes on the woman while speaking loudly to me in the hope that she would realise he was referring to her. He yelled,

“Order one for me as well would you please!

His gaze was still on her.

I buckled into fits of laughter. The woman, presumably thick-skinned, did not react to this comment.

She ignored the remark and wandered upstairs to find another victim, leaving me relieved that she didn’t try to shove a doughnut into my mouth before she departed.

Casper’s irate quip may not have done the trick, but it certainly still makes me chuckle to this day.

Of all the drunken men who frequented the store, Ryan was the one who touched my heartstrings the most.

Firstly, he was the most regular – visiting us up to 3 times a week and sometimes every day.

Secondly, he was the most disruptive.

Thirdly, because one day, I saw him sober and it was more heart-breaking to witness than when he was drunk.

Ryan would always enter in style. He would have a can of beer in his hand and would begin shouting as soon as he touched the door handle.

His entrance was so abrupt that it made everybody jump. We never got used to it.

Sometimes I would drop a CD or accidentally scribble on an invoice as a reaction to the shock of his dramatic arrival. At other times, I would be on the phone and have to reassure the customer at the other end that we were not being raided at gunpoint.

It will come as no surprise to you that Ryan’s visits were another situation where we had to ring for emergency assistance.

Babies in prams, children in buggies and the elderly generation were most at risk of being startled.

Poor Ryan was ‘out of his face’ and uncontrollable.

I never heard him use profanity and he was never aggressive, but the volume of his voice, his unsteady gait and constant chatter was, nevertheless, emotionally disturbing for all who came across his path.

While mothers shielded their offspring, and others gave him the widest berth possible, Ryan would make his way to the till area and slump onto the counter. It would end up wet with beer and saliva as he struggled to talk without spitting everywhere.

Whichever member of staff was unfortunate enough to be standing by the till, they would be his target. He would look them in the eye and prattle loudly, jabbering nonsensically.

If a customer was already stood there paying for goods, it made no difference to him. They would be knocked into, with his dirty coat making contact with their arm and they would inevitably be showered with hops-infused saliva.

One day when Ryan was being dragged out of the door by two burly security guards, he looked back at me, surrendered to his fate, but desperate to continue his communication.

“Bye bye Darkie.” He said.

I laughed so much! His gesture was not one of racial malice, but an affectionate way of trying to exchange pleasantries with me before his next visit.

All my colleagues were white, so he needed to make it clear to whom he was referring.

Ryan’s face was a picture of sadness. His skin was scarlet from his drinking habit and covered in scars, bruises and scabs. Whether this was from fights, drunken falls of having to sleep on hard surfaces, I don’t know, but I suspected it was a mixture of all three.

Like I said earlier, one day he came into the shop completely sober. It was sad enough observing his demeanour when his blood was full of alcohol, but with no beer in his belly and alert to his surroundings, he was to be pitied even more.

It was at this time that I understood why he found it necessary to obliterate his mind from reality so often.

Unlike his usual entrance, he walked into the shop slowly and quietly. He slumped onto the counter and I looked into his forlorn eyes. They were sorrowful and lifeless.

For the first time ever, his words were comprehensible. He told me that his father has also been a ‘drunk’ and that he had ended his life by suicide. Ryan had been the one to find him and he was only a young boy. The memory had been etched in his mind ever since. He continued by saying that he believed he would go the same way as his dad and that it was impossible to fight against his fate.

Knowing that this could be the only time he would be sober enough to understand what I was saying, I seized the opportunity to sympathise with him, then tell him the good news about Jesus.

I never saw him clear-headed again, but I thank the Lord that I had the privilege to be able to say something to him while he was in the right state of mind.

I imagine that unless a miracle occurred, dear Ryan is no longer roaming this earth. He is one of the people I will be looking around for when I reach Heaven. I hope he had the chance to get his life right before he passed away. I really hope he made it. It will be great to hear someone come up behind me and say, “Hello Darkie!”

And yes, of all the chapters in this book that have made me cry, this is the one where my tears have flowed the most.

It is not always easy to make the right decisions when faced with somebody who has a penchant for self-importance. It is even harder when that person is a customer, and you are wanting to give them the best service possible.

When being taken advantage of, one has to ensure that assertiveness doesn’t not overflow into rudeness. I think we handled difficult situations well, but sometimes things went awry.

Local Talent

Of all the unpublished, unrecognised authors in the world, I think that poets are the majority.

Whatever the style, there are probably as many self-published collections of poetry in the world as there are grains of sand.

Sadly, we were not able to accept all the poetry books sent to us by individual authors.  The famous Helen Steiner Rice had even lost her popularity and most of her collections were already out of print.

Neverthless, writers sent us their books without even bothering to place a covering letter inside the package to explain who they were and what their request was. Those who did include letters, ususally insisted that we accept a whole box of their books, claiming we could deal with them on a sale-or-return basis. One such person even boasted that their book contained beautiful images. On inspection, we discovered that it was just littered with printouts from Clipart.

Local singers were also keen to request a spot on our shelves and because we had a listening post, it was more hopeful for them that we could help sell their items. Customers loved spending time sampling our music, so we did not mind too much when we were approached by an eager musician clutching a few CDs.

The main problem was where to put them, because our music section did not have much spare space and we were always being sent new titles from our warehouse which had to be on prominent display.

The atmosphere changed one day when a young lady marched in demanding to see the manager. When Casper arrived, she did not ask him if he would kindly take on some of her CDs, she told him to. At first, he was calm and hid the irritation caused by her discourtesy. As her importunity increased, Casper graciously explained that we only had room to display one. This was not good enough for her and she insisted that he accepted all the copies she was holding in a box.

After several declarations from the young lady that we must do as she says, Casper could bear it no longer.

“If you’re going to be like that,” he said, “you can take the whole lot back!”

This was justified. Her manner was that of disrespect and arrogance. However, when a person is of that ilk, they cannot cope with rejection easily and pride gets in the way of rationality. We’ve all been there at some time or another – knocked back for being too big for our boots.

She stormed out and went home to empty her fury onto her computer. A complaint was penned and sent to Head Office, who in turn passed it onto the area manager, Archie, to sort out.

Poor Casper had no defence because Archie was desperate to keep the peace. So, he ordered Casper to apologise to the angry singer and eat humble pie by accepting the whole box of CDs.

She came back in a few days later, with a big grin on her face. We placed one CD on the front row of the gospel section and another on the listening post, promising to re-stock as soon as any copies were sold.

Regular visits were made by the girl to check that her CDs were still there on display. Owing to the fact that customers often failed to place goods back in the correct place, CDs would inadvertently end up hidden, so we would panic if we saw her entering the shop.

There would be whispers of,

“Where’s the CD? Have we sold one? Oh no, she’s coming! Quick, search for it!”

I don’t remember if any copies were ever sold; as far as I remember, we didn’t sell any. What I do know for certain is, I was happy that I wasn’t the one who had to hand the rest of them back.

Bargains

One of the managers from our head office contacted Casper to inform him that we would be getting a brand-new addition to the shop. A bargain basement!

This was exciting because our lower floor was large and could hold plenty of stock. New shelves were put in all around the walls and a few tables in the middle. We were then sent monthly bundles of stock and a price list indicating what we were to sell each item for. It was shockingly amazing! Genuine leather bibles worth £80 were priced at £19.99. Large hardback books worth £12.99 were priced at £3. Expensive bible bags were just £1 and children’s books were as cheap as 20 pence. Most of the other books we were sent were also under a £1 and so it gave customers the opportunity to bulk buy without breaking the bank.

I personally procured a porcelain nativity set complete with a large wooden stable for just £5 and it still graces my coffee table every Christmas.

People would come up from the basement with 25 books in their hands and when we added them up the total would be £4.50.

This, however, was not sufficient for some people. One day a man fell onto the side of the counter with his chest banging into the wooden surface. Many books that he had piled up in his arms, spilled out onto the top. There must have been about 30 items. I had never seen this man before, so he was definitely not one of our regulars.

Yet he raised his chin at me and said,

“I am a pastor of a very big church.”

There was silence as he paused for me to take this in.

“I am well respected in my community and I preach regularly. So…what extra discount are you going to give me because of this?”

I smiled at him as sweetly as I could.

“Well Sir, with all due respect, if we are to give you any further discount, you may as well be getting the whole lot for free. And if we let every customer walk out of here with 30 books they’ve not paid for, we will not stay in business for very long. Is that what you want to happen to us Sir?”

His face flushed and he stuttered with embarrassment.

“Well no. No, I er… wouldn’t want that to happen to you at all. I suppose these books are already knocked down to an exceptionally low price and I am grateful for that.”

He paid for the items without giving me any further eye contact and left, never to be seen again.

Last year I was having a great chat with Sophie, reminiscing some of the funny incidents we could remember from our time working at the shop and she told me of a similar story involving Casper.

Apparently, somebody else had come to the counter with a large pile of books, expecting a bigger discount.

Casper had looked them in the eye and said,

“So, 90% off is not good enough for you is it?”

I roared with laughter, wondering how many other tales I was unaware of. Maybe one day, one of my colleagues will have the inspiration to write a “Volume Two”.

Reps

We had frequent visits from sales reps who were desperate to flog us CDs from artists who had published new releases.

Casper gave me the responsibility of greeting the reps and spending time with them, listening to their sales pitches. I then had to make a decision about what to buy and what to reject.

I dreaded these visits because I knew that much of what was being advertised from month to month, would not sell in our shop. Because I was passionate about Christian music, I had no reservations about marketing and promoting our wares; but because of this, I also knew about the general musical tastes of our customers.

There was one rep, Larry, who I loved dearly because he understood our plight and having been an area sales manager for our parent company, he knew the importance of not being over-stocked with merchandise that nobody wants to buy. He worked for Authentic Media and did them proud because unlike the others, he was not pushy and did not use tactics to try to sway my decisions. He always wore a jovial smile and his demeanour never altered according to how many products we purchased from him.

The others, I embraced with less fervour than a trip to the dentist. Firstly, I had to tend to them in between serving customers, and I don’t multi-task very well.  Secondly, I felt awkward whenever they would talk excitedly about a new release and play samples of the tracks. They would place a CD into their laptop then glare at me, awaiting a look of delight.

Apologies for repeating myself, but I instinctively knew what would be embraced by our clientele and what wouldn’t. All consumers are selective. Our customers were no different and very often the music buyers were finickity when it came to what they desired to see in their collection.

To give you a quick example of this, one of our most frequent gospel music buyers was Paul. We had a new CD that was released by a singer called Bryan Duncan called, “Joyride”. He was white, but the songs were of a black gospel style – an epic album of holy, happy-clappyness – so I placed a copy alongside the coloured folks.

Paul would tutt at me and say,

“Why do you keep putting this man here?”

I would reply,

“He may be white, but this is a black gospel album. Have you listened it any of it yet? Let me play a track for you.”

“Huh!”

He stared at the Caucasian man on the back cover and plonked the CD back on the shelf. In the wrong place.

“Paul, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The first track is called, “I’d Like to Thank you Jesus” and if you close your eyes, you wouldn’t even know he was w…”

“No thanks. I haven’t got time. My lunch break’s almost over and I’ve got to get back to the timber yard.”

Undoubtedly, trying to persuade our music lovers to step out of their comfort zone, usually didn’t work.

So, here I would be, stuck with a salesman who has music blaring out of his laptop and is staring at me intently.

“Shall I order you a few then?”

I would groan inwardly and try to put on my most compliant expression:

“Er, not at the moment, thank you. Yes, she has a nice voice and…”

“So, l can pop four on your order form?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Three then?”

“Erm…you know…it looks like a great album but…”

“Two? Come on, you’ve gotta have at least two. This album is ace!”

“None.”

“What was that? Did you say, one?”

“I don’t think it will…how many more have you got to show me?”

“Ah, just wait until you hear this! If you take three of these, I’ll give you a freebie you can take home for yourself and…”

“Er… didn’t you say this would only take forty-five minutes? Couldn’t you just leave a load of samples and I can phone my orders through later on this week? I’ll give the freebies away to the customers and if any of them like them, they’ll buy some more as gifts, won’t they?”

“I’ve only got 5 more to show you. So, you’ll have three of these then?”

This kind of conversation went on every month and apart from the ones with Larry, I ended up feeling guilty and mean.

When the reps first began visiting, I would be savaged by intimidation and relent. They would act like they were going to be hung at dawn if they didn’t make significant sales from each branch. Feeling awkward, I would say,

“Oh, go on then. I’ll have one, okay, two.”

Being only too happy to offload their stock onto us, we then ended up with CDs that people ignored.

One salesman in particular, irritated Casper and I, because he would try every trick in the book to get us to purchase goods from him. One day, he arrived when it was extremely busy, and I was occupied with a customer.

He took out his mobile phone and went towards the main window. Like the crazy character whom Dom Joly plays in “Trigger Happy TV”, he began speaking at an exaggerated volume so that everyone could hear his voice:

 “Well last week I was in the States and caught up with Staccie Orrico and her crew. Yes, I had a good chat with Stacie. Yea, over lunch. She’s very busy of course with all her upcoming concerts, but Stace and I…” he bellowed.

I rolled my eyes and smiled. Nobody was planning to mob him for signed copies of Miss Orrico’s work that he may have had lying inside his briefcase. She was a teenage singer who had been discovered at the age of 12 and had been rushed into churning out many albums in the hope she would become as popular as Amy Grant. No disrespect to the pretty young lady, but she was not. Across the Atlantic, a sales assistant may have been suitably impressed by his dalliance with the singer and subsequently purchased every CD on his hit list. She indeed was popular in the USA and had the support of her parents who helped with the management side of her early career. But three copies of her first album “Genuine”, was still sitting on our shelves after 26 months, and I genuinely hoped he didn’t have more in his bag.

Repentance Review

The reps probably had targets to meet and therefore pressure from their managers to sell as much as possible. I imagine that it is not an easy job, and to go from store to store being constantly knocked back, must have at times, felt demoralising.

All in all, in the shop, difficult choices had to be made and saying no to customers sometimes landed us in hot water, but thankfully, saying no to reps, didn’t.

Adam spoke in monotone voice. He wasn’t autistic but would have loved people to think he was.

I liked him. My colleagues didn’t. Casper and Trudy had endured more years of his nuisance and were especially averse to his idiosyncrasies.

It seemed as if his task was to see how much he could irritate us. Daily.

I say I liked him, but that is not entirely true. At first, I felt as strongly about him as the others did. He was annoying. He went out of his way to ask stupid questions, provoke us and to do the most aggravating things he could think of.

He would buy music that he knew he wouldn’t listen to. We knew this because each time he purchased a cassette tape, he brought it back the following day for a refund.

“Why don’t you listen to it first Adam?” I would ask.

“No, it’s okay, I know I like it.”

“But you always bring them back.”

“That’s because they are faulty.”

“All of them? Adam, in the past 2 weeks, you’ve purchased 11 cassettes and brought them all back again. I play each one after you leave and none of them have had anything wrong with them.”

“A man outside wearing a tin hat just tried to mug me.” he would reply. “He grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to give him my wallet.”

This was often Adam’s response to confrontation. His replies were totally off-topic and grew increasingly exaggerated the more one paid him attention.

He would peer through thick rimmed spectacles with a dead pan expression. He reminded me of a certain actor and whenever this person was in a film, it would make me chuckle to myself.

Casper had a personal reason for disliking him because Adam had played on the emotions of one of his close friends and had subsequently mocked the friend when he became upset about it.

One day, Trudy told us a story of one of her encounters with Adam on the first floor. He had been lingering around the bible study booklets.

We had the ‘Cover to Cover Series’ and the ‘Lifebuilder Bible Study Series’, which are booklets about individual books of the bible and also topics such as, parables, the end times and faith.

Adam had picked up a booklet entitled, “The Fruits of the Spirit” and had taken it to the counter where Trudy was busy working. Because she has good customer service skills, she had looked up to give him the attention he required. He began leafing through it and pinpointing the various virtues mentioned, which were listed in the same order as that of Galatians Chapter 5. As ‘Love’ was the title of the first chapter, he had decided to begin with that.

“What is love?” he had asked her.

After her reply, he began a ritual of identifying each chapter title then asking Trudy about it. He had covered questions about, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.

Trudy’s patience was wearing thin. There was only one virtue left, so he asked,

“What is self-control?”

According to Trudy’s story, he did not use any vocal expression. He didn’t need to. She already knew he was not the slightest bit interested in the contents or the principles thereof.

She had had enough. She had gritted her teeth and looked at Adam straight in the eye, replying,

“You want to know what self-control is? It is…what…I…am…doing…right now!”

One evening while at home, Adam came across my mind and I began to pray for him. At first, it was with irritation, but I suddenly began imaging Jesus walking beside him and tenderly caring for him. I repented of my bad attitude towards him and of any contempt I had in my heart. I then asked God to do a work in me and change the way I saw Adam.

God is such an amazing father. From that day on, I liked Adam and his ridiculous behaviour never bothered me ever again. Before, whenever he would enter the shop, we would all cringe and look for something to do so that we didn’t have to be the one the deal with him. But now, I genuinely was pleased to see the young man and began to feel the heart Jesus had for him. Whether his actions were deliberate or because of his mental condition, I did not care, because the grace I was showing towards him had gone from dutiful to genuine.

Please don’t misunderstand – I am not implying that I showed more love towards him than the rest of my colleagues. I can only vouch for my change of heart because nobody discussed the matter with me, but I’m sure the others had him on their prayer list. If I am to be as truthful as possible, the very fact that they didn’t throw him into an empty box, cover him with *foam peanuts and then sit on it, is a miracle of grace in itself.

He still talked a load of nonsense. He still retuned goods that he had purchased the day before. He still wasted our time. He still slumped onto the counter and spoke in a monotone voice and he still made up the craziest stories one could imagine.

His most absurd story happened two months before I left to go on maternity leave.

I had been working on the first floor but was feeling bored because all the jobs I wanted to do were downstairs. Casper thought it best for me to be stationed there during my pregnancy because I was being a fussy first-time mum, complaining about safety and not wanting to strain myself lifting heavy items. The last thing he wanted was for me to be putting in lawsuits. Head Office would probably reject the litigation and make him pay for them out of his own wages because after all,

“We are a charity”.

I was not too bothered when I saw Adam mounting the stairs. He came straight to the counter and began asking me odd questions. Suddenly, he noticed the large bump protruding from my tummy.

“Oh, you are pregnant.”

There was a slight pause.

“I delivered a baby for a pregnant lady last week.”

This was going to be fun.

“Oh really?” I replied. “How did that happen?

“I was on the bus.”

“The bus?”

“Yup. She gave birth on the bus.”

“So, who else was there?”

“Just me. And a few others. But they asked me to do it.”

“Why did they ask you?”

“They knew I would be good at it.”

“Umm, okay. So, where did this pregnant woman she lie?”

“On the floor between the seats.”

“And how did you deliver the baby?”

“Just pulled it out. It was easy.”

“So how did you cut the cord Adam?”

I thought I had got him with this one. But with no hesitancy he replied,

“Scissors.”

“Scissors?”

“Yea. The bus driver had some in his pocket. He lent them to me.”

I looked at Adam and realised that the poor fellow truly believed that this event had taken place. I congratulated him on his bravery and decided it was best not to encourage him to fib any further.

A few weeks later, I saw him again and he seemed different. He began telling me a tale about how some guys had been bullying him, but this time the account sounded plausible. He told me that he felt so scared that he tried to remember things people had told him about Jesus. To my surprise he repeated something that I had told him a few days earlier about the importance of turning the Jesus for protection – the importance of not just using him as a magic wand, but rather, taking our relationship with God seriously. I was shocked that he had remembered it word for word.

“So, you were listening to me the other day when we had that chat.” I said.

“Yes.” he replied.

“Well, that’s great. Well done!”

“Thank you. The reason why I remember is because today I decided to take my medication. I usually forget. That’s why I am so weird. You see, I have Schizophrenia. It makes me say and do the stupidest of things. But I took my tablets today. And when those men started on me, I thought about how Jesus loves me and wants to be my friend.”

*The soft packing our suppliers used, which were edible white pieces of foam that resembled “Wotsits” / corn puffs.

From time to time, I loved to play pranks on my colleagues to ease the tension of a stressful day.

Jessie was my best accomplice because she was even more giggly than me.

Everyone who worked with Casper for any length of time knew he hated brussels sprouts. His face would contort just at the mention of them, and he would make choking, vomity noises each time he thought about the ‘wretched vegetables’. He eventually declared that they were ‘of the Devil’.

One day, Jessie began talking about food and mentioned that Casper had told her that Christmas dinners are ruined when this detestable piece of produce is placed onto his plate by an unsuspecting host.

“Let’s get some,” I said, “and plant them everywhere he goes and everywhere he puts his hands.”

Jessie danced on the spot.

“Ooh yes! That would be such a laugh. Let’s get loads!”

“Okay. But you mustn’t let on it was us. Not at least until the end of the day. Even better would be for him to go home and moan to Ellie and have her suggest to him who she thinks it might have been. See if she can guess before him.”

“Well, he’s bound to know it was either of us.” said Jessie.

“Yes, but he won’t realise it was both of us. He may even think Louise was involved.”

“Oh yea, and it will be so funny to see her face because when he accuses her, she genuinely won’t know what he’s talking about.”

We laughed at the thought of Louise stating that there was no way she was going to waste her hard-earned money on Marks and Spencer’s overpriced commodities and why would he even think she would do such a daft thing?

At lunchtime, we dashed to the ‘middle class supermarket’ and picked a bag of their finest little green balls.

When we got back to the shop, I split them in half, and we set about stuffing sprouts into everything that belonged to Casper. His jacket pocket, locker, desk drawers, office in-tray, fax machine, coat pocket, mug, briefcase, lunch box, downstairs in-tray and packet of digestive biscuits all got acquainted with this abhorred mini cabbage. We crept back to work biting the sides of our cheeks.

Now, Jessie assured me that she could keep a straight face. She also assured me that she was such a good actress that there was no way that Casper would suspect her of foul play.

When it was time for Casper to go to lunch, he walked out of the door wearing his jacket. I giggled at the thought of him putting his hand inside his pockets.

Jessie had disappeared upstairs by the time he returned, and I kept my head down so not to accidentally give him eye contact.

An hour later, she came back downstairs looking sheepish.

“Sorry Sharon, I gave the game away.”

“What? So soon?”

“Well, he came up to me and asked me if I was responsible for the supply of sprouts.”

I frowned.

“What, and you just owned up?”

“No. I slipped up. I turned around and said, ‘I never put them in your coat pocket.’ And he replied, ‘I never mentioned their location, so how did you know they were in there?’”

Overproduction

If there was one thing that rattled Trudy’s nerves it was the Americanisation of products. What I mean is, when a certain item is popular, Christian publishers seem to bring out as many versions and variations of that product as possible.

The “Power of the Praying…” series by Stormie Omartian, is fantastic and well-needed. But each time a new version came out, Trudy would wonder when it would stop. We had, “The Power of a Praying Wife”, then, “…husband”, “…parent”, “…grandparent”, “…girl”, “…life”, “…teen”, “…woman”, “…church”.

Recently, there was a new edition called, “The Power of a Praying Mom”. How that differs from the ‘parent’ book, I’ve yet to discover, because isn’t that what a mother is?

Then there were study books, audio books, perpetual calendars, bookmarks, notebooks, prayer journals, leader’s notes, gilt-edged editions, hard backs, pocket editions, softbacks, leather bounds, giant prints, boxed sets and more.

When a book by Bruce Wilkinson called, “The Prayer of Jabez” came out, a similar pattern emerged.

There was, “The Prayer of Jabez for Kids”, “The Prayer of Jabez for Teenagers”, “The Prayer of Jabez Bible”, “The Prayer of Jabez Devotional”, “The Prayer of Jabez Bible Study Notes”, “The Prayer of Jabez Journal”, “The Prayer of Jabez Calendar”, notebooks in flexcover, luxleather, wirebound, genuine leather, faux leather, “The Prayer of Jabez CD”, and also, storybooks, mugs, bookmarks, greeting cards and posters.

One morning while I was emptying a delivery box of new titles, Trudy was sat behind me on the computer.

I stared at my invoice and said to myself aloud,

“Oh. The Prayer of Jabez for…dogs.”

She flung herself around on her swivel stool and widened her eyes as if she had been watching a horror movie.

“That is it! What is wrong with them? Dogs? Dogs! They have a book out for…”

She suddenly noticed my smile which turned into a grin, then a laugh.

Her chest sunk in relief.

“Urgh, I can’t believe I fell for that.” she chucked. “It’s something I could imagine them doing, but I’m pleased to know it hasn’t happened just yet.”

Needless to say, when God says we reap what we sow, it is true. My colleagues did not need get their own back on me.  Unfortunately, I made enough silly mistakes of my own to give people justification to laugh at my expense; as you will discover in the chapter entitled, “Bloopers”.

People tend to see things from their own point of view. Therefore, whenever I am evaluating something that I did not approve of, I try to turn things around and imagine that I am the other person:

With this in mind, I would say that it is quite exciting to be responsible for running my church ‘library’. This is a library with a difference, because all the books are brand new, and they are changed every 3 weeks. How enjoyable it is to grab a large table after the church service and begin piling books onto it, displaying them in an interesting way for all the congregation to see!

How proud I will feel when people congratulate me on my fantastic selection – books I chose all by myself. It took me 35 minutes to fill four baskets. And how nice it is for people to thank me for taking the time to choose them, pack them up and look after them. It makes the thought of taking them back to the shop, more appeasing. You see, each time the service ends, people come up to the table and finger the books. They bend them, and sometimes the corners of the front covers fold over. After all the 50 books have been handled, only two or three are ever sold, but hey, now there are 47 other titles that people now know about.

But I am nervous because I know I’ll have to take them back to the shop soon. That Casper will be ringing me and asking why I’ve held onto them for almost five weeks. That girl, Sharon, will be disappointed when she sees me walking in with my large boxes. When I bundle all the unsold books onto the counter, and tell her I have only sold 3, she’ll try to look unaffected by my comment, but I’ll know what she’s really thinking.

But it’s not my fault is it? I’m the one who has to lug all the books back to the shop again. I tried to sell more; I really did.

So here goes. Ah, it’s not too busy today so I won’t be holding up many other customers.

That adding machine they use is a bit old fashioned. I suppose they can’t afford to invest in a state-of-the-art one. I hope her figure tallies with mine or she’ll have to start all over again. Where’s my discount card? Ah, there it is. 15% off. I should think so too! Afterall, it’s me who is doing the advertising for them. They should pay me commission on top of that!

Oh, what’s her colleague doing? Why is she inspecting the books I’ve just returned? There’s nothing wrong with them is there? Why has she separated 9 copies and placed a heavy book on top of them? Blooming cheek! They are not that bent, surely? Okay, so one or two have protruding front pages that don’t close properly now and they curl upwards as if there is a mouse hiding behind the front cover. Why is Sophie cleaning that pile over there, with a cloth?  Okay, so some have got a bit bashed to the point that they now look second-hand, but what’s the big deal? Three books sold out of 50 isn’t bad is it? I am like their unpaid book promoter and I’m sure more people will be making purchases the next time. Ah, that reminds me, I need to choose another 40 to take away.

They won’t like it. Especially as some of the books I’m planning to take will strip their shelves of best-selling titles. But that’s their problem. They should order more stock in then, shouldn’t they? Ah, Trudy has appeared. I can’t believe she had the nerve to tell me last time, to not take the last copy of the titles on their promotion table. Don’t they want sales?

What’s that Louise doing? Taking all those books that I brought, back upstairs. She better not put them all back onto the shelf because I might want to borrow some of them again.

Right, let’s see what I can take this time…”

God is the only one who sees both sides of a story. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he is talking about when he says we should bear with one another, forgive each other and think highly of one another.

The customers who regularly took books away using our “Sale or Return” scheme were not bad people. They were not deliberately insensitive to our needs and when they took the last copy of books from the promotion table before the promotion actually began the following day, they were not being selfish. In this situation there will always be two points of view: one from those standing on the outside of the counter and a totally different one from those behind it.

My opinion was that by the way in which it was organised, it was not profitable for the shop. Within the month, customers from about nine different churches would take books away for long periods of time without us having any indication of what was going to be sold.

We used a scanner to record what had been removed, but this only told us what might have sold. When Casper reviewed his re-order list the following day, he had no idea if 4 copies of a certain title needed to be replaced or not. Subsequently, we would re-order certain titles only to have five churches bring copies of the same book back, leaving us over-stocked. Yes, because of “Sale or Returns”, overstocks were a common problem.

We loved being busy, so it was not the extra work that bothered us so much.  It was the fact that it seemed that by permitting churches to remove so much produce from our shelves for such long periods of time, that we lost money because of the damages, unjustified discounts, overstocks, and other little niggles that caused confusion.

Books were often returned long after a promotion had ended, so not only did they have to all be re-priced, but the sales stickers had to be removed, which took ages because they often stuck on hard or ripped the surface of the cover if peeled off too quickly.

Archie’s parents were the only customers who regularly sold several items using this scheme and we were extremely grateful for the professional way they handled the system. They truly deserved the discount. Unfortunately, regarding the rest, it felt like a lot of work for hardly any positive results. It was, “Mishandle and Return”. The scheme was devised in the name of advertising. It was also supposed to be of a benefit for those who were unable to get to a bookshop during the week and I sympathised with those; however, we had a catalogue, and we had a website, both of which, would have benefitted them just as well.

Occasionally, customers would ask us if they could take away a selection of CDs too, and that really got me mad. I would flatly refuse, but they sometimes managed to persuade Casper to part with a few titles. Being in charge of the music, this threw my head into a spin, especially as CD cases are so fragile. But it also took away my control over our stock levels and as we Yorkshire folk would say, ‘It proper did me head in.’

Please stay with me, I’m still whinging.

Our other money-losing operation were the special orders. On a Thursday morning, Trudy would lovingly spend precious moments of her time researching retailers and wholesalers to find titles that were not on our database.

Most customers were appreciative of this extra effort that was made to obtain an obscure title or one that was only being sold in America. Sometimes the Barbican Bookshop in York sold us coveted out of print titles and they were a great help.

However, quite a few special orders were never collected and therefore, never paid for.

The reason why we lost money on these items is because at the time of order, no deposit was necessary. The customer would give us their word that they were serious about buying the product and as far as our superiors were concerned, that was enough.  However, there was a common habit that the one who placed the order would either declare that the product wasn’t exactly like what they thought it would be or make the more popular decision of deciding not to come in and collect it. They would refuse to answer Trudy’s phone calls and ignore the postcards she sent to them reminding them that their order was ready.

In my opinion, this happened because there was no incentive to take ownership of their actions. People failed to commit because they were given no obligation to follow through with their duty of purchase. ‘Someone else can buy it.’ was an easier notion to take rather than fulfilling one’s promise to purchase what was asked for.

We are a nation of consumers. People would see an advert on the God Channel for a unique product and get excited. We have all fallen for the ‘Get your copy today!’ commercials and when we are told that this thing will change our lives, make us richer, happier, more blessed and turn us into better people, we take the bait and don’t stop to consider that it is either not worth the price, or our homes have no more space.

Special orders were therefore, often left uncollected in our store cupboard and eventually dumped into the bargain bucket to be sold off at half price, later on in the year. 

I used to say that if I had my own way, my rule would be that anyone asking for something not on our database, must pay a non-refundable deposit of 50% of the purchase price and also be told that the product is non-returnable.  

My stance behind this plan was that even if we didn’t make a profit from uncollected items, if we managed to sell them off at half price, we would have at least made our money back. But alas, we regularly made a significant loss owing to people’s reluctance to pay for what they had ordered.

I remember the title of a book that a guy desperately wanted to get hold of.

It was called, “Revelations – There’s Light After the Lime.” The author was a man named Mason Bertha and his picture was on the front cover. While Trudy was on holiday, I was doing her special orders and this customer kept on ringing me to find out if his book had arrived. I assured him that I would contact him as soon as we had it in our possession. He squealed with delight. That was the last noise I ever heard coming out of his mouth. He did not pass into the next world – he passed into oblivion and refused to answer my calls.

One day, I spotted him in the shop and made a beeline in his direction. Seeing me in his peripheral vison, he quickly grabbed the headphones from the listening post and pressed the play button. The fact that he had switched on a children CD by Ishmael did not faze him – there was no way he was going to buy that book.

To my dismay, Mason Bertha was taken out of the collection cupboard and placed in the “Autobiographies” section of our shelves upstairs. He stayed there for many months. At the hefty price of £18.99, this book was not cheap and not likely to be ever sold in a hurry. Each time I went towards that section, there he was – a black fellow wearing a tank top, staring intently into the camera with his hands clasped in front of him.

Customers would send me upstairs for various books and there he would be, sat in front of his swirly patterned wallpaper, looking more and more angry each time our eyes met.  Jackie Pullinger would have her big break, when “Chasing the Dragon” was required downstairs.  Eddie Stobart’s story would be of interest to someone else and I would swipe him off the shelves. Corrie Ten Boom followed from her “Hiding Place”, as, yet another customer was desperate to read her gripping story. But, there Brother Mason remained, ironically, out of the limelight and getting dustier by the day.

The book did look fairly interesting.  But not interesting enough for any of our customers to want to buy it and certainly not interesting enough for the person who ordered it to take if off our hands.

Items disappeared from the shop from time to time.

The most opportune moment for thieves was during the lunch period when less staff were on the shop floor. Nothing stolen ever matched Jemima’s loot, but rather, less noticeable items such as small gifts seemed to be the main target.

One day, a young lad walked in and interrupted my conversation with a gentleman at the till.

He threw himself against the counter with the palm of his hands nervously tapping the wood.

“Scuse me love, you got any *****?”

I cannot remember what he was asking for, but it was something that a bookshop doesn’t sell.

He was wearing one of those navy tracksuits that has a white line down the side and had on a matching baseball cap. His manner was that of someone exerting false confidence, and this made him exceedingly jumpy. It was obvious to me that he was up to no good and Trudy, who had been observing him from the mezzanine floor, was suspicious of him also. She put down the greeting cards she was sorting, to give me moral support by making her presence known.

While Trudy peered over the bannister at him, the young man asked me multiple questions – each one being sillier than the last. Suddenly, he looked up to the mezzanine floor and narrowed his eyes like he was in an optician’s chair trying to read the bottom row of letters.

“Oh, what are those?” he said, racing up the steps.

As I followed him, Trudy and I gave each other a ‘What’s he up to?’ look, and watched him closely.

He grabbed a calendar that was hanging on the wall.

“What is this?” he asked again, staring with mock interest at a picture of a pretty cottage in March.

“It’s a calendar.” I replied.

“A calendar?”

“Yes.”

“What’s a cal-en-dah?”

I took a deep breath and asked God for a special measure of grace.

“Well, it’s er…haven’t you seen one before? It shows you…er, what exactly did you come in for?”

He ignored my response and continued to be in awe of his surroundings. He pointed to the first floor where he could hear a price gun clicking while Louise hummed cheerfully.

“What’s up there?”

I turned around to check the ground floor because I suspected that we were being deliberately distracted from something downstairs. Glancing around at the display tables, I could see everything was in order. Nobody was there. I looked across at the CDs. They were all in place. The store cupboard that held the customer orders was closed and nobody had slipped behind the counter. However, our safe was further behind, so I listened intently for the sound of a metal handle being manipulated. Silence.

Our inquisitive customer decided against visiting Louise, and began to take a second interest in the calendars, marvelling at the flowers on one of our long rectangular ones.

To our surprise, he suddenly decided to leave and made an about turn, leaving a yearly planner swinging from side to side as he let it go abruptly.

What a relief that he was leaving! As we lead him downstairs, he walked slowly, draping his hand down the bannister like he was the star of a period drama. Oddly, he stared intently to the right and peered behind the counter as if checking to see if somebody was there. He seemed both pleased and relieved. I was also pleased and relieved. We had not fallen for his little act and were now ushering him out to the door.

As he shut the door behind him, and dashed up the road, Trudy rolled her eyes and suggested that we take another look around. Everything was fine.

For the next hour, the shop was quiet, and this gave us time to tidy up. A while later, a customer walked in and came up to the till with a book. As the till drawer flung open, it made its usual ping noise. The twenty-pound notes were tucked neatly under their spring clip. The tens were there also. But where were the £5 notes? Earlier, there had been about £65 worth, but now that section was empty.

My stomach flipped and I could feel anger rising. Not anger at the lad – that came later. Anger at myself for being such a fool. We had been conned after all!

“Is it okay to give you your change in coins?” I said trying to hold my emotions together.

I picked up the phone and called Trudy, then Casper, who was in his office on the 3^rd floor.

It was so maddening to think that while our ‘friend’ was getting to grips with learning what season of the year we were in, that an accomplice had been downstairs stealthily tilting the heavy till to flick the emergency drawer-release switch that lay beneath. He would have had his other hand on the drawer to prevent it from flinging open and alerting us with its ping.

They must have done this before. I became annoyed at the thought that this gang were somewhere laughing at us and wondering which mugs to con next.

I continued to feel bad for having allowed the shop to suffer this monetary deficit, but I thanked the Lord that Trudy and I had at least been quick enough to prevent the rest of the money from being taken.

But was it really our vigilance that had prevented a large theft?

It was strange how the thief went for the smallest denomination of notes. The tens and twenties were only centimetres away from the fives.

I also thought about how at my previous job working for a bank, we had experienced armed robberies and how scary and dangerous that had been for the colleagues involved. These guys did not threaten us with violence and now we were alert, we could pray more intelligently to prevent it from happening again.

My pride was hurt but my body wasn’t. I could go to sleep at night knowing they emptied the £5 note tray, not our safe. They emptied part of our till, but they didn’t empty bullets into us. This indeed was divine protection and who knows how many times God had stopped the devil from sending dangerous people our way?

Even though our shop was in the heart of the city, it was grubby in places that could not be easily cleaned. Apart from the two main display windows at the front of the shop, the other glass panels were protected by steel bars on the outside. Therefore, they were inaccessible to window cleaners.

All the apertures were a sash design which were so stiff, they required two hands to ease them upwards and it took every ounce of bicep strength to open them even 5 centimetres high. Because the air inside the shop was thick, muggy and hot, Trudy and Casper regularly got their morning workouts forcing them open – but they were so filthy, I refused to touch them. So, haven’t I heard of soap and water? Judge me as you wish – you never saw the state they were in nor will you understand my pathetic excuses for giving them a wide berth.

Being an old building, when it became hot, it was stifling and customers on the first floor regularly complained. Head Office were refurbishing some branches and told us to be patient, reminding us once more that:

“We are a charity.”

The summer of 2005 was a scorcher, so during this time, Casper placed a thermometer on the first floor, and its dial was most often past the 34-degree mark. Yes, it was sweltering, and we panted like Boston Terriers.

Near the till area, there was a door and immediately behind this, were the stairs that lead up to the third floor. At the bottom of these stairs was a small window, so we began wedging the door open to try to get a little breeze inside.

This provided some light relief and it prevented customers from having fainting spells while browsing. However, it was a fire door, so technically, it should have been left shut.

One day after several calls to ‘the managers up north’, a surveyor was sent to assess the situation. Unfortunately for us, we decided to put fear of man before honesty. This is not a criticism – it is so easy for one to make the wrong decision out of worry that another issue will be raised. You see, we did not want to be chided for leaving a fire door ajar; after all, that in itself is a health and safety risk, and so we shut the stair door before the assessor arrived. The temperature dial shot up to 37.5 degrees.  And our plan backfired.

As the inspector wiped his beady brow, he winked at Trudy and said,

“I tell you what, I’ve got a solution to this heat problem. Open that door to get some air in and you’ll all feel much better. I know it’s a fire door but keeping it open will help cool the room down. Given the circumstances, I think in this case we can make an exception.”

He gleamed with satisfaction while writing out his report, and Trudy opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

“Er…well… we do actually… we do leave it open…usually.”

It was too late. He believed he had found our remedy and left with a skip in his step.

It wasn’t just the windows that gave us a workout. Every morning, we had to contend with another irksome piece of apparatus:

The gate.

Heavier, chunkier and rougher than the wood that framed the windows, was a slatted contraption we had to move every morning and replace at the close of business. The shop’s front door was inset and placed at an angle. Infront of this was a small, tiled recess/doorway. A large gate had to be placed on the outside of this area to prevent people from using it for sleeping, as a toilet or a place to vomit.

The gate was attached to a metal clasp on the surrounding brickwork, and it was secured with a large padlock. It was shoulder height (I’m 5ft 6”) and we had to place our hands between the slats then drag it through the shop.

First of all, it would be propped up against the wall while the burglar alarm was deactivated. Then it was dragged across the ground floor and down 3 steps, before being placed inside our tiny store cupboard where we kept our customer orders that were awaiting collection. It made such a racket as it banged down the steps, but it was too sturdy to break.

Casper managed to move it with ease but Trudy, Sophie and I, found it cumbersome. To me, it felt like it weighed a ton, but I guess if that was true, we would have all been auditioning for ‘The World’s Strongest Christian’. It was especially hard trying to get it up the 3 steps in the evening and it took the strongest stomach muscles to heave it back onto a flat surface. Nevertheless, it served its purpose and I rarely needed to fetch the mop and bucket for the doorway – when I did, it was only to clean up a discarded cheeseburger.

With regards to my fingers, I did receive the occasional splinter, but all in all, I look back at the gate with fond memories, as it truly was a useful monstrosity.

For me, and I suspect the rest of the team would agree, the worst part of our building was undoubtedly, ‘Alcatraz’. I shall tell you more about that later.

Tristan was a small elderly man with a row of gappy teeth and a wide grin. He spoke in a gruff voice and wobbled when he walked. This was not owing to old age. Tristan had a drink problem and therefore always entered the shop in a drunken state.

Unlike the other inebriated men who visited us regularly, Tristan actually bought items. Fish badges. Unfortunately for him, once he got home, he either lost them or they were stolen.

Thus, each time Tristan came in, he wanted to buy another badge. This in itself, was not a problem. What made things a little more awkward was that he would not allow us to pick one out and give it to him. Asking him if he required gold or silver would not suffice. Even though they all looked the same, he insisted that we hand him the box so that he could rummage through them himself.

Resembling Albert Steptoe was one thing, but unfortunately, he looked even more like him by his hands, because they were extremely dirty and covered by grimy, fingerless gloves. In the interest of public hygiene, we did not want the badges to become contaminated, but at the same time, we did not want to appear rude or respecter of persons.

When Tristan had finally chosen a badge, he would ask for one of us to pin it onto his clothing. At this point, I would think of Jesus touching lepers and feeding the poor and tell myself that I am making an old man very happy by obliging with his request. I would try to imagine Jesus smiling sweetly at me with a jewel in his hand that he was preparing to put into my crown should I attend to this request with a right attitude. But truth be told, I hated it. I made ‘every excuse under the sun’ in order to try and get out of having to go close to him, and then touch his clothes.

But alas, we had no choice. If we did not pin his badges on, he would become aggressive.

One day, after I secured two badges onto his malodorous coat, he refused to leave the shop. He was mumbling incoherently and getting cross because I couldn’t understand him. Casper came downstairs to try to reason with him and Tristan flew into a rage.

He clenched his hands into two little fists and placed them in front his face, threatening Casper to a fight.

As Casper moved forward, he spoke gently to him, explaining that he had the choice of either leaving quietly or going out with the security guards.

Tristan hated the guards because they were his usual exiting companions.

Suddenly, he spat at Casper.

With dribble trailing from his bristly chin and dropping to the floor, he squared up to him again with tightly clenched fists.

I promptly phoned for assistance and grabbed some tissues so that Casper could clean himself up.

Once again, the guards came to our aid and dragged a screaming Tristan out into the street. The rough handling caused the fastener of one of the badges to come lose and it bounced onto the floor.

It would only be a matter of time before the front part would come loose also, and my heart sank.  This meant that dear little Tristan would be back again very soon.

I giggled. And giggled. Trudy refused to look at me while she served the man in the shop. One would have thought his attire was invisible the way she kept a straight face. But the reason she did not join me in my mirth was because she did not consider anything to be funny. Here was a man, a Christian brother, wanting an item and she was serving him just like she would do anybody else.

This man usually roamed around outside. He said nothing to passers-by, but gawped at them hoping his outer garments would trigger a conversation about God.

I think people mostly avoided both him and his gaze. I think also, that it was obvious to them how the conversation would begin should they be brave enough to smile at him.

I had never seen him enter the shop before and I would have expected him to have removed his cardboard clothes before he did so.

Yes, he was:

The Sandwich Board Guy

A heavy block of wood was draped over either side of his shoulders held together by string. His face was as sombre as his message and I thought he looked hilarious. I was also rather embarrassed that this man was representing Christianity. The message on the board said the usual,

“Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven draweth nigh.”

As soon as he left, I began to laugh once more.

Trudy gave me one of those glares which I interpreted as, “Stop being so immature!”

“Well, yes,” she began. “he is spreading the word of God. He’s just doing it in a different way that’s all.”

I hung my head in shame. She was correct. I did not know this man and had no idea of his intentions. I didn’t have any right to judge him or express mockery for his weird dress-sense. He was doing what he thought was appropriate and to his credit, did not shout damnation phrases at anyone. He was walking around with a bible verse in the hope that somebody would read it, digest it, and let it penetrate their heart. What was I doing? Standing there giggling and reaching out to nobody at all.

Megaphone Gang

There were other people who did shout out ‘Hell and Brimstone’ messages at people in the street. Their form of evangelism was always quite loud because they used a bullhorn and spoke with a stern expression.

One Saturday when their message was drowning out the music in the shop, I had an idea. The preacher was usually accompanied by six to eight evangelists who would stand around him while he spoke. They sometimes handed out leaflets to passers-by, and I assumed that their mission was to get a conversation going about the Lord. I challenged my young colleague who was stood next to me by the till. It was a quiet afternoon, and he was bored, having completed all his jobs in the morning.

“I dare you… to go outside and approach one of the evangelists. Say to them, ‘What must I do to be saved?’”

“Okay.” he said, jumping at the chance to have a little fun. “What do you think they’ll say?”

Each time I worked with this lad, he had strolled into the shop bleary-eyed, confessing that it was owing to a hangover after some kind of party the night before. For two other reasons that I will not share with you, I suspected that he was struggling with his Christian identity, so I thought it would do him no harm to have a little chat with our church family outside.

“Well, they should ‘give you the gospel’ at least.” I replied.

He rushed out the door, eager to perform his task and I was very eager to hear the results.

To my dismay, he wasn’t gone for more than five minutes.

I frowned at him incredulously.

“How come you are back so soon? Did you ask them the question?”

“Yes.” he replied. “I said exactly what you told me to say.”

“Well?”

He furrowed his brow in a mixture of confusion and disappointment.

“They said, “Stop interrupting.”

The management team were run by a group of people dedicated to spreading the word of God. They were passionate about seeing a Christ presence on the high street and their vision was to have the UK filled with well-stocked Christian bookshops.

Christian literature had been distributed by this parent company since 1957 when evangelist George Verwer had a heart to spread the gospel.

The chief executive who came on board in 1986, increased the turnover by more than 50% and six years later, our first bookshop was birthed in the English county of Kent.

There was another large Christian bookshop chain run by a more Anglican based ministry and our head office staff made sure that they didn’t step on their toes. Therefore, if a town already had a thriving bookshop run by this other company, the managers would not plant one there.

Eventually, 41 branches were opened across the UK, including Northern Ireland, with each branch being allocated an area manager who would oversee a few shops.

Our area manager, Archie, also had a shop himself, 16 miles away from where we were located, and he visited us regularly.

Many residential training courses were available for staff and these were held 124 miles away further north at the headquarters. Casper, being an introvert and loving his own space, had a dilemma. He enjoyed the managerial courses but dreaded having to share a hotel room with a stranger.

“Why can’t they just give me my own room?” he would wail.

But cost saving was of paramount importance and we were always being reminded that,

“We are a charity.”

Another thing that made Casper uncomfortable were the remarks that were made from time to time that, out of all our branches, he was the only manager who was a member of a Pentecostal church.

I’m not sure why it was felt necessary to mention his denominational preference. Were they scared he would perturb them during the middle of a board meeting by suddenly jumping up from his chair and shouting,

“Well hallelujah, we are making a profit at last! The good Lord be praised! Can I get a witness y’all? The spirit is moving in me and I testify we’re going to see an outpouring of customers. Yes, an end-time harvest is raining down. I feel the tongues coming…shandallabarh… ooh yes, I do! They shall not tarry but burst forth into praising our Saviour. And devil, I bind you right now! Shaka, lala, heeky, beeky! I cast you out of this room! Power, come! Ohh, I feel it! Can I get a witness? Everybody say, amen! Haa, ley loo yar!”?

They should have known from his taciturn personality that he was not into making a spectacle of himself and that all denominations are filled with a variety of people.

Nevertheless, he was occasionally reminded with what seemed like bemusement,

“You are our only Pentecostal manager.”

Their bent towards a more conservative style of Christianity was reflected in the books on our stock list. Authors such as Rebecca Brown, Mary Baxter, Roberts Liardon and Kenneth Hagin were not on that list. Customers did ask for books by these authors, but they were classed as, “Special Orders” which Trudy obtained from America.

However, controversial titles such as “God Calling, by The Two Listeners” and “The Lost Message of Jesus” by Steve Chalke, were on our stock list and Steve’s book even made the Top Ten list.

This rattled certain customers, who complained that we were promoting heretic titles.

Upon further research and backed up by the Evangelical Alliance UK, Casper discovered that the Steve Chalke book was definitely dishonouring to God, to the point of blasphemy, and we promptly removed it from our shelves. However, these two titles remained on the stock list controlled by Head Office, so if a customer requested one of them, we had to order it.

Not everyone who worked at the headquarters warehouse was a Christian, but we all loved Patty who was in charge of the service centre where branches would call if they had a query or problem. We all appreciated the value she brought to the team and I did not realise she was unsaved until a week before I left to go on maternity leave. This is probably just as well, for if I had known, she would have been bombarded with a load more ‘God bless you’s’ at the end of each call.

My conclusion about Head Office is found in the last chapter.