A Christmas Carol

As it's Christmas, I thought I'd share some images from an edition of Charles Dickens' Christmas Stories published by Chapman and Hall of Covent Garden, and illustrated by F Barnard. It contains the classic tale A Christmas Carol, along with The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. It's not dated and probably not valuable, but it is old and lovely...

Happy Christmas, all! x

A visit to 18 Cullum Street

I was in London yesterday for a festive visit to Dennis Severs' House in Folgate Street, Spitalfields - one of the most Christmassy and magical places you can experience in London in December in my humble opinion! It's like wandering around a giant and opulent dolls' house from a few centuries ago. It's usually only open on Sunday and Monday afternoons, and they only let a few people in at a time, but it's really worth the effort if you like immersing yourself in a world and time away from the present.

I digress! 

As we were driving across London, I thought I'd stop by at Cullum Street, to see exactly where Jon Ash Book Shop used to be. As Laurence Worms had kindly supplied me a photo of the shop back in the day (see previous blog post), it gave a little more to go on to find its precise location - my previous visit to Cullum Street earlier this year on a snowy January Sunday was a lot less conclusive. So I think it's this shopfront here, based on the few numbered shops in the street, and the fire hydrant signs in both photos. Pretty tiny! It's now a walk-in dental hygienist, Smilepod, and part of a larger shop frontage. The whole area around Bishopsgate and Fenchurch Street is so packed full of modern glass skyscrapers now, I'm surprised it's not even more unrecognisable, or indeed totally disappeared... Indeed, the road has even changed since I visited in January - bollards now block entry to cars, and the road pavemented over.

I've been stalling doing more on this blog and sharing it online, but I think I might just bite the bullet and get going. We have poems to share, things to find out, and thoughts to write :)

Thinking beyond the poems...

So - what to do with this blog? It started with the hidden poems, but it feels like there's more to talk about than them alone. They're very lovely poems indeed. But they don't culminate in a tale of an intriguing love affair, just an appreciation, an admiration, an acknowledgement of Marianne and her passion for Cyril's own passion - books. Perhaps at most, she was a muse for his poetry. I'm sure Mr Nash wrote many poems over time, and gave them on occasion to his customers. Perhaps over the journey of this blog, we might start to piece together a fuller picture.

To this end, a few weeks ago I got in touch with Laurence Worms, former President of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association, eminent blogger, and the man who bought Jon Ash bookshop from Cyril Nash and Hugh Jones in the early 1970s. He evolved it into Ash Rare Books which moved to larger premises at the Royal Exchange, before most recently moving to private premises in South-West London. My sister and I know that our mother carried on being a customer of Ash Rare Books beyond Cyril's 'reign' as it were, with a number of Ash Rare Books catalogues from the 1970s and 80s being among her paperwork. Laurence has been incredibly generous in sharing his time and knowledge to provide some background and insight into Cyril Nash and his life as part of Jon Ash. He kindly passed on what he knew of Cyril from their business relationship, and gave me contact details of two longstanding customers who started their book collecting habits with Jon Ash back in the day, who therefore may well have known Marianne. Amazing :) He also sent over these two photos - one of Cyril and Hugh in their shop, absorbed and surrounded by their life passion, and one of the shop exterior. I visited Cullum Street earlier this year in the snow - it's certainly changed since the 1950s and I struggled to identify which building was No. 18. I'll go back for another visit soon now I have this photo to refer to.

Cyril Nash (l), Hugh Jones (r) - 1970

Jon Ash, Cullum Street, London

So, of the blog. It already feels like we're on an exciting path of exploration and learning, and I have material for several further blog posts already around the story of Cyril, Jon Ash bookshop and the poems. And then there is our mother's impressive book collection itself. My sister and I would like to learn more about the books - what makes them rare and collectable, how to look after them, which ones we might want to keep, which ones we might consider finding new homes for. We might even read a few...!

More soon :)

In your lovely eyes...

Still guessing the order somewhat. But let's go with this undated poem of ponderment and curiosity...

M.M.

Why do you delve so long and deep

In tales and fantasies of old?

Is it to find those gems that keep

Lost secrets of a flame that's cold?

Aye, cold! For in your lovely eyes

Are lights that jewels never knew

Which, rightly used can loosen ties

That bind so many tongues, to glories new.

One of the first poems?

The trouble is. The poems aren't all in order. Some are dated. Some aren't. But from reading them all, and building up an insight into the story, I think this could have been one of the earliest ones, possibly January 1959. But I don't really know. Marianne must have caught Cyril's eye as she browsed the bookshelves in his shop. I suppose she would've been quite distinctive - a woman in her early twenties with a penchant for old books. He must've asked her name, as the poem is personalised 'To M M'. He must've written his first poem to her. He must've waited for her to come back to the shop and make her next purchase. He must've hidden the poem inside the book she bought. The poem reads:

"Miserere Mei"

She took the loathsome book

From off these shelves of mine

And came to me with troubled eyes

Because she could not pay the price

So clearly marked inside

(Deliberately high, to fend off youth)

And asked me to reduce it.

I took the volume in my hand

With its corruption plain for all to see

And looked into her eyes

All goodness virginal,

And steeled myself to sharply say

"I will not take a penny less" -

And cursed myself for fool and knave

To see her small face set

Prepared to make this sacrifice,

And pay.

I wonder how this poem was received by Marianne? It didn't stop her returning to the shop, certainly. And so the poems continued...

How we found the poems

Our mother, Marianne, was a keen collector of old books. She amassed a great amount over her lifetime - from books on London, to finely illustrated children's stories - filling bookcases and shelves in almost every room at home. After she died from cancer in 1989, the books remained in the house along with the rest of her treasured possessions. Except clothes - they were forcibly bagged into binliners and taken to the charity shop by a forthright family friend a few years afterwards. I digress.

I was supposedly studying for my A-levels in 1992, but frequently sought distractions from revision. So I started looking at the books. Flicking through them at random, I would find newspaper clippings, bookmarks, recipes, bus tickets... And then poems. One, two, another, another, and oh - there's another!

Telling my father about what I'd found, he recalled Marianne mentioning them years ago - that a bookseller wrote them for her, hiding them inside books she bought from his shop. There was a shoebox in the bedroom wardrobe, he said, with a few of them kept in an envelope. The shoebox was retrieved. The rest of the books were gone through. A collection of nearly 100 poems and a few brief letters came to light. Written as far as we can make out from dates written on some of the poems, between 5 February 1959 and 27 November 1962, with a huge intensity in the first 9 months of that time, until she "bade him stop" according to one of the notes.

What do we know of this bookseller? His name was Cyril Nash. He was part-owner of Jon Ash Rare Books, which was in Cullum Street in the City of London. Based on scanty information found online, he would have been a considerably middle-aged man at this time.

Marianne would have been in her early 20s, working as a clerk at an insurance company in the City. She must have visited Jon Ash frequently in her lunch hour to add to her growing collection of old books.

This blog is in memory of Marianne, and to pay respect to Cyril Nash, for his talent, dedication and obsession in writing these poems. From one of his notes, it seems like he wanted them to be published one day. So we'd like to share them with you.

Eleanor & Imogen, September 2013