Mr Nash writes a poem for another customer

Laurence Worms, who bought Jon Ash bookshop from Cyril Nash and Hugh Jones in the early 1970s, put me in touch with another regular customer from the time of Marianne's visits - Alan Cole. Alan very kindly shared with me the following:

"I used to visit Jon Ash almost every lunchtime when I was working for a French bank in the City. From them I obtained much of my collection of early books, manuscripts and letters. After I retired I started teaching palaeography at the University of London and the latter acquired the collection of some 140,000 items covering the history of writing from around 6500 BC to the present day to become the Museum of Writing Research Collection."

Alan Cole, founder of the Museum of Writing
and Lecturer in Paleography at University of London

"Laurence Worms forwarded your blog to me, which I read with great interest and much reminiscing, because Messrs Jones and Nash played an important part in my life for some 15 years.

"I first came across Jon Ash in October 1955, one week after starting my job in the City and I continued to go to the shop almost daily until 1971, with a break for National Service and a time working abroad. Hugh Jones was the silent partner, not in the legal sense, but vocally; he only said what was needed at any one time. Cyril on the other hand could be heard arguing the toss with a customer or dropping books down the back of the shelves and not quite silently oathing as he tried to extricate them. They often bickered about prices and whether they should purchase books that were offered to them. However, they were very close as work partners and I became very fond of both of them because of their idiosyncrasies and because they were such a knowledgeable, loyal and kindly pair.

Cyril Nash (l), Hugh Jones (r)

"I also knew Marianne quite well, as we were sometimes on opposing sides when after the same book, which happened on several occasions. She actually took me out to a nearby café on one of those occasions to sweeten me up and persuade me that I did not really want that particular book. In fact, I seem to remember that it worked that once and she walked out of the shop clutching the book in triumph. We were often in the shop at the same time, along with another small number of regulars and Hugh Jones named us The Clique, appropriately! We often joked that Cyril fancied Marianne, in a friendly way, as he always became very officious and slightly embarrassed, usually looking down when she was in the shop and he was trying to get the best price for a book she wanted. I know that he wrote poems about her and sometimes other customers, as I found him doing so one evening after the shop had closed and I was browsing - in the good old fashioned sense. I have one that he wrote about me somewhere in the loft that went on about penny-pinching bankers with half-eaten sandwiches trying to bankrupt him. It appears that he had been writing poetry for many years and the rumour was that he had written a book; whether it was poetry or not we never knew."

And here is that poem from Mr Nash, to Mr Cole. It's so exciting to read another of Cyril's poems, with a different slant on it, but still personal to the recipient and wryly observational of life in the bookshop. I notice the nod to Cyril's previous life selling insurance, as Laurence told me about (referenced in this blog post here). And I love finding out from Mr Cole that there was a gang of customers called 'The Clique', and that Marianne was part of it :-) I wonder what the book that she desperately wanted was - it must be in the collection at home somewhere!

The clock strikes twelve and I begin to tense,
as this is the time that the thirsty sandwich-munching bankers,
fresh from making their pile,
come to the shop on their way to a bar to try and bankrupt me.

They would not know a Shakespeare from a comic,
but they pick books from the shelf as though that is how they spend their day,
making ignorant comments and offering me a pound,
despite the fact that the book is marked ten pounds and is a first edition Hardy.

There are exceptions, of course, that help to pass the day,
He from the French bank, more interested in the written word than the printed book,
at least he know his stuff and buys more readily than most;
with not much of a quibble and as passionate as me, talking books for almost an hour each day.

Two o'clock and the bankers, overfull with beer,
wend their tottering and noisy way back to that humdrum existence I once knew.
I would give nothing to relive those times that I remember well,
but wish to be here, surrounded by books and friends, a life they will never know.