Book dealers – especially those in the secondhand and antiquarian trade - are a fascinating breed, even if some in the rare volumes end of the business can be uppity , adopting airs and graces . Unfortunately, a large number of secondhand dealers have closed their doors, often due to escalating rents, age and infirmity, the impact of the electronic age and the couch potato syndrome which has produced legions of illiterate drones, incapable of opening a book and reading from cover to cover. More importantly, they will never know what wonderful places real bookshops are , not the modern , sterile chains marketing “product”.
One secondhand dealer still standing after 26 years is Brian Smith , 69, proprietor of Charing Cross Books , Chardon’s Corner, Annerley , Brisbane . During that time , many bookshops have come and gone ; he laments the closure of a one anywhere in the nation. At the entrance to Charing Cross Books is a jumble of boxes ; inside is like Tutankhamen’s cluttered burial chamber. Squeeze your way along the narrow aisles and you are confronted by Lost Worlds. To locate the purveyor , it is desirable to call out, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at a séance , “ Hello !Is anybody there ?” Reminiscent of a scene from The Curse of the Mummies , Brian will appear, seemingly from behind a secret sliding panel.
In a recent encounter with him , he showed me a great find of his ,The Scribblers , a self published book, written after years of research , by one Jean Stewart, which is about a group of women known as the Ladies Literary Society ,Brisbane, 1911. Smithy says it is a gem ,with rich information about the writers , some of whom were wives of prominent men and members of well known families.
Brian likes hunting down early Queensland publications , ephemera , documents, gathering history about suburbs and the changes in them over the years, their decline and rebirth as trendy new inner city pads. Knowing his enthusiasm for gathering information about bygone days , he probably sleeps with The Scribblers beside his bed , along with the latest form guide as he likes a punt.
A bricklayer in earlier days, he owned 12 racehorses over the years 1960-1980, and winnings enabled him to open the bookshop. When it comes to interesting yarns about the racetrack and its characters, he is something of a Damon Runyon. We swapped yarns about the late Adelaide bookdealer , Morry Edmonds, also a follower of the sport of kings, who had an interest in several horses. . Edmonds would not accept credit cards in his shop, but was happy to take a cheque , some of which bounced .
Charing Cross Books –charingx@optusnet.com.au- is not far from the famous cake shop-LUNNS FOR BUNS - owned by the parents of journalist / author Hugh Lunn once stood . Lunn wrote Over the Top With Jim , published in 1989,the story of his Brisbane upbringing at Annerley Junction , during which time he had the hots for Sallyanne Atkinson ,which sold like hot cross buns and was made into a highly popular ABC radio series. It was the 1991 biggest selling non fiction book in Australia.
Brian recalls that a Perth woman was so impressed by the book, she came to Brisbane, booked into an Annerley motel and walked up and down, drinking in the atmosphere. Little Darwin was pleasantly surprised to learn that the counter at Charing Cross Books had once been the cake display stand at Lunns’ shop. A large antique shop now stands where the bun shop , swallowed up by an early Woolworth’s building, was located and from whence Little Darwin has bought various items.
Hugh Lunn won several Walkley Awards for journalism,was Queensland editor of The Australian for 10 years and was sacked and reemployed by Rupert Murdoch several times. Other claims to fame are that he coined the expression there is no such thing as an ex-Queenslander and,wait for it, convinced the president of the Queensland Rugby League ,Senator Ron McAuliffe, of the viability of a rugby league State of Origin series.
In appeararance , Brian Smith resembles a wise Roman senator, with impressive white eyebrows that twine like laurel vines . His jovial female hairdresser is amazed by the way the regularly trimmed eyebrows grow back so quickly in luxuriant , rampant fashion. He refers to them as his “feral eye lashes ” and firmly maintains they are a sign of virility .
