When Dr Bell retired he realised he would have to keep out of his wife’s way during the day. After all, she was used to having the house to herself – alone that is, except for the constant flow of WI members for coffee, Ladies’ groups for lunch and sewing groups for conversation.
At first, the retired doctor bought himself a glorified garden shed, 12 x 12, insulated, heated, coffee maker in obedient reach. This didn’t work too well because when the female hordes descended, he would all too often be called on to collect stragglers, meet Mrs so and so who urgently but unreasonably wanted to meet him, or use his male muscle to unscrew lids. His answer was to go out.
Walk a mile to the town and enjoy coffee in the Hospice Coffee and Bookshop. Old friends, patients and colleagues would be there. Soon, refreshed, he could set off for a longer walk, lunch in The Swan and head for home when the coast was clear. Like many a comfortably-off retiree, he was mean about his spending. Waterstones were there to tempt him, but he told himself that he had much more choice in a second-hand bookshop, especially if it were a charity. Happily admitting to being a parasite, he collected on the cheap.
One day, in the Hospice Shop, the manager joined him at his table where he was reading a book he intended to buy.
“You spend a lot of time in here, Dr Bell. How would you like to volunteer an hour or two per week. The books are not in perfect order, but you’d soon fix that.”
Bell stirred his coffee and pretended to think for a moment.
“OK. Monday and Wednesday mornings any help?”
“I’m grateful.” Dr Bell was now a Friend of the Hospice.
Very soon his hour or two became almost a daily duty. Then it became four days a week. His wife barely noticed because the summer tournaments had started.
He only read novels these days. When he took over, they were arranged in rough alphabetical order. Sometimes, to his annoyance, Frank Herbert would be standing next to Frayn; Hardy among the Ts. He set about curing this untidiness. Very soon customers remarked on how nice everything was – except the bottom shelf. He was upset by that area of disorder. He knew that every charity shop had no idea how to handle what he called non-books. Who brought them in the first place? Those gardening books were Dad’s Christmas presents, a few years ago. Since then his back has collapsed and he had to smuggle the books to charity. The aged road atlases; expensively self-published memoirs and generously-advanced politicians’ autobiographies had very limited shelf life. Worse still, were the ghosted footballers’ and actors’ stories; business and Self-improvement books, written by people who feel they have the divine right to tell us how to run our lives. The worst clutter, according to Dr Bell, was the gluttony of the cookery books. Most of us are too fat already. Then there are the diet gurus. Go Vegan; starve two days a week, live on seaweed and carrots; drink white wine. Diet or you die. The unwanted books collected dust and took up valuable selling space. The people who support the hospice wanted to read stories. For them the whole bottom shelf could be pulped.
Dr Bell agreed. With no qualms, he removed a few, then a lot, day by day. Kind supporters brought more in. He suspected Oxfam when he saw an old National Trust publication which he had kindly slipped onto their shelf a week before.
