WIGTOWN
SCOTLAND
‘Becoming Scotland’s book town has put us back on the map and given people a reason to come here.’
Andrew Wilson
Wigtown offers the keen reader perhaps the most enticing of prospects, the chance of temporarily running a bookshop. The Open Book, set up by The Wigtown Festival Company on the high street in the middle of town, can be booked for up to a fortnight. Visitors stay in the flat above the shop at night and manage the business during the day. It’s remarkably cheap (via Airbnb) but it is usually booked out months in advance. To get a flavour of the experience, the temporary booksellers are encouraged to contribute a diary of their stay to the shop’s tumblr at theopenbookwigtown.tumblr.com.
The turnaround in Wigtown’s fortunes has been remarkable. By the mid-1990s the decline in the local whisky distillery and creamery industries resulted in very high unemployment, numerous empty properties faced demolition, and grim prospects for the future. The turning point came when Wigtown beat five other locations (Gatehouse of Fleet, Moffat, Dalmellington – which was Richard Booth’s preferred choice - Dunblane and Strathaven) to become Scotland’s official book town in 1998. Two decades later it is a thriving town again, popular among walkers for its beautiful rural location, full of secondhand bookshops, and home to one of the UK’s major literary festivals. And the distillery has reopened.
The first festival took place in 1999, and the ten-day event in September and October now attracts more than 25,000 people. It caters for ages across the board with a special children’s festival – Big DoG, named after Nana in Peter Pan - and another for teenagers and young adults. Over 200 authors take part in nearly 300 events each year, and there is an annual Spring Weekend in May as well as a poetry competition. Wigtown Book Festival is run by a small professional staff headed by Adrian Turpin who was awarded an OBE in 2017 for services to literature and the economy of Wigtownshire, but it would not happen on this scale without the hard work of around 100 dedicated volunteers.
The bowling green and Country Building in Wigtown, Scotland’s only book town.
“Becoming Scotland’s book town has put us back on the map and given people a reason to come here,” says Andrew Wilson who runs Beltie Books on Bank Street with its emphasis on all things Scottish, especially Covenanters and local football team Queen of the South. “The book town was important to us on deciding where to come and live. I wanted to move back to my home area and Wigtown’s charm and the likelihood of there being more cultural activity convinced us to come here in particular. You will never become rich selling books, but as a second income for a family or as a step to retiring, having a bookshop is perfect. Wigtown as a book town definitely attracts a much more mixed and lively group of people than other similar small rural communities. It is an uphill struggle at times to come up with things to promote the place or bring the community together, but the whole concept of being a book town opens up lots of possibilities.”
Like various other bookshops in Wigtown, Beltie also operates as a café and even offers accommodation. Glaisnock Café and Bookshop (Main Street) is as proud of its locally-sourced offerings and guest rooms as it is of its ‘book cave’ of general stock, and ReadingLasses (also Main Street) offers vegan and vegetarian food as well as 25,000 books in its shop and converted telephone exchange round the back.
“ReadingLasses is the only bookshop left in the UK specialising in Women’s studies and books ‘by and about’ women,” says Jacqui Robertson who bought the shop in 2015 after a career as a teacher and lecturer for more than 30 years teaching in far flung locations like the Falkland Islands and remote Scottish Islands. “ReadingLasses trades mainly in secondhand books and we boast a very large collection of Virago Press and Women’s Press titles. We also have probably the largest collection of lesbian fiction in stock in any bookshop. I like to think of ReadingLasses primarily as quite a quirky women’s bookshop. I am rather self-indulgent and only stock books about subjects I’m interested in so we have science, natural history, social science, travel and exploration, and history. My reasoning is that if I am knowledgeable about the subjects and books I can talk about them with customers. At the moment we are in the middle of renovating a huge barn at the back of the premises, and this will become an academic library containing reference books and journals. Writers will be welcome to use this as a retreat, we will be able to host events and run tutorials and study groups. There is further renovation work planned to provide a further venue space during the Book Festival. This is all challenging but, hey, what’s life without a challenge!”
Wigtown is home to Scotland’s largest secondhand bookshop, The Bookshop, run by Shaun Bythell, whose memoir The Diary of a Bookseller details the delights and the challenges of running a secondhand bookshop. Also on Main Street is Byre Books which specialises in mythology and folklore – it also happens to have one of the most marvellously bucolic entrances to a bookshop in the world. And then there’s The Old Bank Bookshop run by Ian and Joyce Cochrane. “I grew up just six miles up the road, went to school fifteen minutes down the road, then left for university.” says Joyce, a chartered librarian. “It was the Book Town that brought me home.” They sell a huge amount of sheet music, too, from their premises in the old Customs House and Bank, which dates back to the eighteenth century.
Among the various book publishers in town is the small, independent Curly Tale Books (also Main Street). It was set up by writer Jayne Baldwin and author and illustrator Shalla Gray in the former children’s bookshop The Box of Frogs – they continue to sell books for younger readers as well as publish new titles.
The Open Book, a place for anybody who fancies trying their hand at bookselling.
Curley Tale Books specialises in children’s literature, toys and gifts.
Cosy reading spaces inside The Book Shop.
The enchanting pathway entrance to Byre Books.
There’s something for everyone at the Wigtown book festival.
The largest book town in Scotland.