How Did Marrins Bookshop Come About?
George Marrin (1896-1991) founded the firm of G & D I Marrin
and Sons with Doris Irene Marrin (1916-2001) in 1946. Ill health, forced his
early retirement from a hectic life as a Trades Unionist in the Inland Revenue
Staff Federation, working with Young Jim (Callahan became PM) and Douglas
(Houghton, (became Baron Houghton of Sowerby) and several other Labour
politicians destined to become statesmen. George had been in the trenches in the
First World War, an experience which convinced him of the sense and justice of
socialism and he tirelessly fought against privilege, in a system riddled with
snobbery and public school chum promotions. The old order was forced to become a
meritocracy by never ending political pressure. His work was not forgotten by
his old comrades who were now rising stars in the House of Commons, and the
Christmas Cards, always the Parliament buildings, arrived every year.
George had been advised to move away from London to the sea side for the air.
Numerous trips to the coast later, they settled on Folkestone and George opened
his first bookshop in 1948, in Cheriton Place. At that time he was selling new
books, with just a few second hand and rare items. Four years later he moved to
Hythe to found Kipps Bookshop to indulge his love of antiquarian, books, prints
and maps. With help from his brother Charles he expanded to Canterbury where
they ran another shop in Palace Street. The 1950s were hard times for a small
booksellers, there was little money to spare for luxuries and some retrenching
was called for; he decided to sell the shops and continue bookselling from home.
In 1962 George and Doris were offered the ground floor of our present shop. In
1970 the upper floors became vacant and we moved from Hythe, to reside above the
shop.
The family and the bookshop thrived in the elegant Victorian house situated in
the centre of town just off the Leas. The mild air of Folkestone was good for
George's health. He developed many friends among the crusty military men and
retired right wing Empire builders, who populated the town then. He had a gift
for understanding how people had become what they were. He saw that they were
lost in the post war world of atom bombs, and underneath the bluff and bluster
these old colonial reactionaries were decent people, so he made some
extraordinarily unlikely and enduring friendships. The large houses of West End
Folkestone were still largely in single ownership, but the owners were finding
the houses too large and began to sell the accumulated collections of
generations, including large numbers of books, which always seemed to be at the
top of the house and needed my youth to fetch dusty volumes down to ground
level, I think it was these wonderful libraries which gave me a taste for the
business, people selling them just wanted to get shot of them and they had no
idea of their merit, or otherwise. Dad’s shop was full of interesting books,
conversation, pints at lunchtime, and some thing he learnt from the old
Estonians, bottles of wine in the afternoons.
In December 2003, in order for John to be near his in-laws, the partnership was
amicably dissolved and John moved the First World War side of the business to
new premises in Ford, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, Now Patrick runs the Folkestone
shop with the assistance of full time shop manager John Powell.
John and I had purchased a computer system and began to produce our own
Catalogues and the pace of the business became even faster. Now the internet is
an everyday thing for a lot of people. This has bought much change to the way
booksellers now operate, and the more common books are now not economic to try
to sell. This: coupled with the meteoric rise of charity shops, who get their
staff free, pay very little rent, pay reduced business rates and pay nothing for
their stock. No bookseller can compete with this competition. Two thirds of the
UK’s Antiquarian second hand bookshops have disappeared in the last five years,
and this trend is continuing. We are in great danger of losing a great and
useful asset to any community, both as providers of books and other printed
material and as a knowledge base and expertise which is not easy to replace. I
have people call into my shop almost every day with items which are sometimes
beautiful and rare; these people are not fools but they don’t know there is a
market for the things they have, and they are on the way to the dump, because
most charities decline books which are old or frail, only wanting cheep romance
paperbacks or similar. People give their books free to the charities who say
thank you and promptly throw much into a skip. They do a very poor job of
displaying the books they do have and most never have any idea what they have.
They consistently retain the rubbish and throw away the gems. I despair. Most
auction houses only want items worth over £100 per lot. Inevitably a frightening
amount of good and historic material is being wasted every day.
The largest retailer of second-hand books on this country is now Oxfam, they do
have some paid staff with expertise but they would be the first to admit they
are not a patch on the established Antiquarian bookseller
Article from Go Folkestone Newsletter March 2007
