Mustn't grumble

I know I shouldn't complain. Look, we've all organised events where the public has stayed away in droves. And people will hate me for this. But eventually you do have to say something is not great. Yesterday Five Leaves had a stall at a "Reading Fair" organised by Nottingham Libraries. That is if the combined strength of Five Leaves, the local small press Weathervane, a promotional stall for Alt Fiction, a stall from Nottingham Writers' Studio, SoccerData and Nottingham Libraries themselves make up a Fair. Nope - six tables a fair do not make. The added attractions were five 15-minute talks, in the same room. We'd been asked to provide speakers but had doubts, passing up the opportunity to bring in some of our writers, and our doubts became reality when we saw the six tables, with about ten chairs laid out for an audience. Too many chairs we thought, and, indeed, at least one speaker had an audience made up solely of stall holders. Well, we sold four books over the day, and our staffie had her laptop so managed a fairly quiet and uninterrupted day at the mobile office. But it is not good enough. Nottingham Central Library has a regular audience, is slap bang in the middle of town and has staff devoted to promoting such things. The Nottingham literati would probably love to attend a Reading Fair with lots of stalls, events and publicity. These things cost stall holders time and money. Next time?

Bill Fishman at 90

If you thought Bernard Kops (posting before last) was not quite a spring chicken, our William J Fishman - Bill - is a bit ahead of him. Queen Mary, part of the University of London, where he was a Professor, is hosting a 90th birthday afternoon tea for him on the 20th of this month. I'd known of Bill for many years, and knew him slightly personally, before we published him first in 2004. He'd been published by Duckworth (save for his first book, The Insurrectionists, which was Methuen) very successfully from the Old Piano Factory there. A publishing address worth having for sure. When Duckworth changed hands Bill was chucked out, even though his books sold steadily. Well, that was good news for us, and we steadily brought back to print East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914, East End 1888 and Streets of East London - all classics of social history, and all reprinted by us at least once since we first published them between 2004 and 2008. All have sold into four figures. We also reprinted, for the first time in paperback, his Insurrectionists, last year - though that has done as badly as the others have done well! There's not a lot of shops that stock the books - but all reorder steadily, especially Eastside and the Museum of London. East End 1888 crops up on course lists in the USA. It was a good move to take them on, and good for Bill, who spoke at quite a number of events with the books available again.

But what about the man himself? Recently someone got in touch who met Bill on his arrival at university, dressed as a punk, with a mohican. Bill grinned at him and said you need to read Kropotkin ("my boy"). He did of course, and still does. Bill was in great demand for his East End walks, the idea pioneered by him, and for his memories of the Battle of Cable Street. He always bought a copy of the Big Issue even if he'd just bought a copy round the corner. And in conversation - always great value. The last time we met he talked about meeting Gandhi while in the forces, active in support of Indian independence. He picked up quite a lot of Hindi when stationed overseas, to the surprise of some Indians round where he lives in London - being hailed in Hindi by this very elderly-looking Yiddisher fellow.
I'm proud to be Bill's publisher, looking forward to the tea and many more years of conversation with Bill, and his wonderful wife Doris.

If you think Five Leaves does obscure...

I was thrilled to come across a new press to me in Nottingham. Soccer Data (http://www.soccerdata.com/) publishes books about football - but such football! In their new list is Sunk Without Trace: the Chingford Town Story. The publisher admits that the book is a slim volume, as Chingford Town played only two seasons in the Southern League before folding. They were a troubled club, not least as the River Ching "seemed determined to flood the ground at any opportunity". The backlist includes the essential The Wembley Way: Halesowen's FA Vase Glory Years. If I had the remotest interest in football this would be the publisher for me. Who would not want a copy of Lay on them backs, Boston, a detailed account of Boston United's games in the FA Cup. Let's get The Chingford Town Story into the best seller lists!

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Call the Kops

Just had a long, catch up call with our writer Bernard Kops. Bernard is currently working on a novel, getting up at 5.00am (5.30 at weekends) to write for a few hours. If you read his Five Leaves' autobiography, The World is a Wedding, he seems to be an unlikely prospect to still be working at 84, or even alive. He managed to avoid being bombed in the Blitz, but it was close, but it was getting bombed with the other meaning that almost saw him off. His career has been up and down, to say the least. Bernard's conversation is always good value. One minute he's off on Colin MacInnes (Bernard and Erica Kops appeared, thinly disguised, in Absolute Beginners), the next he's describing his April visit to the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies to read his poem on Yuri Gagarin, which he presented to Gagarin in 1961, at their recent celebration of 50 years since Gagarin's space flight. Bernard said he was astonished to be invited as he had not thought of the poem for fifty years.
Bernard has the knack of being everywhere and knowing everyone, for example the cover of The World Is a Wedding is a portrait of him by Ida Kar (currently being exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery). Kops fans can book the date of Monday 28 November to celebrate his 85th birthday at the Jewish Museum in London, but he's usually out and about, reading. He rarely turns down an invitation!

You have nothing to lose but the chains

Phone call on Wednesday - a (potential) reader tried to order one of our books at his local WH Smith. He was told it would take 3-4 weeks to obtain, so he rang us and the book went in the post the same day. WHS could also have had the book next day if they could be bothered. Thursday, an employee of another national chain emailed asking about a book his shop had ordered to his firm's national distribution centre on 28th March - was there a problem with that title? No, but our trade distributor has not received the order for it from the distribution centre (though they did return ten copies of the book last month). Friday, checking sales: bookshop sales of our title Scamp are good... but one chain ordered 30 (further) copies last month and have returned 21 this month.

A Rose Loupt Out

Andy Croft at Smokestack has published this new collection of poetry and song celebrating the UCS work-in, thirty years after Jimmy Reid, Jimmy Airlie and others put it to the workforce of the Upper Clyde Shipyards that they should not accept redundancy, nor strike, but take over the yards and run them. The work-in electrified Scotland - I can well remember marching in Glasgow with the chants of "Heath Out" echoing back from the high buildings in the centre of town. After a year the government caved in and the yards were saved. Meantime folk musicians, poets and a couple called John and Yoko raised and sent money to keep the wages flowing, the struggle going. I cannot remember hearing Jimmy Reid speak at the time, but, like Mick McGahey and Lawrence Daly of the NUM he was an autodidact; a well-read man with a wonderful turn of phrase. This is an unashamedly political book, collecting songs and poems from the period, the history of the work-in and the solidarity movement covered by the editor David Betteridge. Scattered throughout there are snippets from interviews and letters from the period, and the book ends with a detailed further reading list about the work-in.

The selection of poetry is excellent, including the never to be forgotten title "The Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (Repealed 1974)", though that is an exception, title-wise. The stand-out poem for me was "I am the Esperance" by Gerda Stevenson, which imagines the creations of the workforce - the floating crane Hikitia, home from Wellington, the Empire Nan, a stout tug, the Delta Queen "her great stern wheel churns the foam / as she steams in from the Mississippi" - "canvas unfurled, freighted with hope, / as wave upon wave, you surge into Glasgow Green". Some of the poems are by well-known writers, Edwin Morgan and Jackie Kay for example, her "The Shoes of Dead Comrades" being reprinted here, another great poem. The majority of writers were new to me.
My one criticism would be that the songs don't quite work as well as the poems, unless you know the tunes they were based on. I wish the book had included a CD of the songs. Good value though at £8.95 for 140 pages.
http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/a_rose_loupt_oot_david_betteridge_i022221.aspx