10 things you don't know about me

Staff often have a professional persona, and while we are genuine we are at work, so you don't always know everything about us. I've worked at Page & Blackmore for 8 years and you may think you know me, but here are 10 things you might not know...

1. I was born in Wainuiomata. My first song I knew was "Paekakariki, the girls are cheeky, Wainuiomata the girls are smarter"
2. I make jewellery - I studied at Whitireia Polytechnic for 3 years back in the late 90s, and have exhibited my work at galleries and jewellery fairs nationally and internationally.
3. I like paper dolls. (We just got in this book today so I'll be tempted!)
4. I have a love for vintage bicycles - probably started at 8 with my first bike - a purple Raleigh I nicknamed Speedy Gonzales that was passed around the neighbourhood from child to child.
5. I need dark chocolate and coffee.
6. I have worked in the book trade since 1990. Prior to computer technology - microfiche was the step up from a card catalogue system. (My previous bookshop jobs have been at Bennetts Featherston Street, Unity Books Wgtn, Blackmores Booksellers and The Museum Shop.)
7. I've lived on a Greek Island, where I worked at a restaurant where my first task in the morning was to kill the cockroaches, followed by sweeping out the dry donkey dung from the grooves in the pebbled courtyard.
8.My ancestors are Greek (my father was born in Cyprus) and Scottish (my grandfather was from Edinburgh).
9. I have a double major in Politics & History
10. I am really very short - 4'11''.

Here's Holly

We are delighted to welcome Holly to the Page and Blackmore team. Holly has recently completed a degree in English Literature and Art History at Victoria University.  She's currently doing a couple of papers in graphic design and photography at NMIT. When she has spare time, we are fortunate to have her working with us at P & B and she'll be here full-time over the busy summer period. (Don't be fooled by her lovely English accent, she is a Nelsonian really).

Changes afoot!

 

From the 21st July the new owners of Page and Blackmore will be Ann and Peter Rigg. They have decided they are not yet ready to retire and instead have purchased Susi and Tim Blackmore's share of the business. The team are all staying and looking forward to the future.

Spot the Difference

We had a lovely card arrive in post today from wonderful artist and regular customer Jo Tyson. Love the doggie personalities! Jo, we think you've captured Peter & Susi delightfully.

Meet the staff: Lucy

I have worked here for 3 and a half years now, but have been a long term customer. I have fond memories of Tamora Pierce and Arthur Ransom in the old Blackmore's shop. When I'm not selling books, I'm a Mum to 2 year old Bryony, with another on the way this winter. I enjoy reading crime, memoirs, science-fiction and fantasy and I collect books on baby names.

Meet the staff: Cherie

Cherie is our magazine guru. She's been working here for about 2 years, ever since long time staff member Bev retired. Before coming to us, Cherie worked at the (now closed) Magazine Shop on Hardy St, so she knows her stuff.

When she's not pricing, filing and returning magazines, Cherie likes to garden, fish and spend time with her family. She and her husband Mark have a 14 year old son, Corey and a 4 year old Jack Russell.

Q&A with Sarah

How long have you been at P&B?
I am one of the more recent additions to the staff at Page and Blackmore, moving from being a very loyal customer to being a very loyal staff member in March of 2013.

Previous book selling experience? (or other interesting jobs)
When I was in London working for the National Trust in the garden of 17th Centuary Ham house I worked weekends in the wonderful ‘Ian Sheridan’s bookshop’ an quintessential second hand bookshop in Hampton. Instead of getting paid in the normal fashion I was paid in books and some of my most special books date from this time, including a very early edition of Mrs Beeton and a 1625 copy of ‘The Historie of the Most High, Mighty, and Euer-glorious Empresse, Elizabeth, Inuincible Queen of England, Ireland, & c. True Defendresse fo the Faith, of immortall Renowne, and nuer-dying Fame and Memory’, how’s that for a title? I’ve always been an avid reader generally with several books on the go at any one time and a stack waiting in the wings.

Seminal books from your childhood/life or favourite reading memories?
I struggled with reading when I first started school so every Friday evening my dad would take me to Whitcome and Tombs in Christchurch to purchase another AM/PM reader and once I mastered the craft of reading I was off. I was often getting told off for reading under the covers with my torch! Now I get the pleasure of reading to my children, each evening the girls and I read the next chapter of our current book.
Favourite authors, genres to read.
I have fairly recently returned to study and are completing a science degree with an environmental science focus so I’m attracted to anything that looks at the nature, landscape and environment as well as human interaction with it. Fortunately there is no shortage either nonfiction or fiction that explore these themes.  Recent  fiction favourites being the Margaret Atwood’s ‘Year of the Flood Trilogy’, Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Flight Behaviour’ and Wu Ming-Yi’s ‘The Man With the Compound Eyes’. There are far too many nonfiction books to mention, fortunately Page and Blackmore has a large selection to feed my appetite for reading from ‘Ghosts of Gondwana’ to ‘Continents on the move’ to George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ and anything by David Suzuki.

Hobbies/pastimes/family:
I am mother to three wonderful daughters who are aged 6, 8 & 10 who have fortunately inherited my love of reading, which makes Christmas and birthday presents easy. Any reference of our family wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our beloved pony Tiny, who although not fond of reading had become a lead character in many of the girl’s stories.
When I get the chance I like to get out in nature; tramping and camping are great especially with the girls.

Trish keeping it under wraps

We've called in all the troops to help with wrapping. Today is Trish's turn. Trish has a long history of working at Page and Blackmore, she started many years ago at the old Blackmore's shop up the road. Her daughters Anna and Jessie and her son Joe have all worked here. It's rather like working for the Mafia. You really can never leave.

The best cleaner in the world!

Meet Laura, our wonderful cleaner. She is the best cleaner in the world. There are places in the shop (particularly the upstairs store room) that had never seen a duster or a broom before Laura arrived! (And she's colour co-ordinating today with the Ian Rankin books.)

A bookman's overalls

1.       Thomas started selling books (then they were antiquarian; now they are new) in a plain grey dustwrapper (like the one he’s wearing here) about twenty years ago. He has also sold books in a brown plaid dressing gown (when he had his own business and sold them by catalogue), but not so often.

2.       The unitary filing system. This useful bag contains the paperwork for this year’s Christmas catalogue. The label is both an injunction to read the contents, and an indication that the contents have already been read.

3.       These are bibliographer’s boots but they are good for bookselling, too. Thomas has tried standing at various points along the path a book takes from writer to reader, and finds the best thing about bookselling is that it occurs at (and can even create) the most exciting moment of all: when a book and a reader find each other.

Meet the Staff: Maclean

I have been lucky to be working for P & B for almost three years.  I have worked in 10 good bookshops and libraries over the years, as well as working in museums and as curator for Larnach Castle.  I love books and have a library full of my own.  My husband Derek and I are photographers and  we  plan to live in a caravan next year (when our son starts at Otago Uni)  and to roam the country writing and photographing.  Favourite authors: Too many! Most Indian and Japanese authors, Barbara Kingsolver, A.S.Byatt, Neil Gaiman, current nonfiction and art books of all kinds. Favourite pastime (when not wading in river with camera) curled up with cats, port and a Really Good Book… I think I purr!

Our prodigal pilot returneth

Elizabeth has been working here off and on for four years and it's always a treat when she's in town and is available to work for a day. When she is not selling books Liz reads books, fantasizes about reading books, reads staff reviews of books and occasionally flies planes.

Meet the Staff: Marie

 I have worked at Page & Blackmore for six months and find it a wonderful workplace where I meet great people every time I roll up to work (customers and staff!).  Previous experience in the world of books includes being on the library committee at college - this mean spending one lunch time a week behind the library counter (heavenly) and issuing stamping books - it seems very tame in this e-age but it was heady stuff in those days being 'in charge' of the books.  And then many years later working at Victoria University Bookshop firstly on the Information Desk and then as the textbook buyer, a move to Auckland saw me at the bookshop at Unitec and then moving to work for several years for ProCare Health Ltd, one of New Zealand's largest PHOs.

One of my earliest 'book' memories is walking to the Newtown library with my mother pushing my younger brother in his pushchair with me holding onto one side of her coat and my elder brother on the other side.  It was quite a walk up and down Edinburgh Terrace to get to the library and I often think of my mother's energy getting the three of us to the Library every week.  I come from a family of readers with a mother who frequently said if you have a book you have a friend.  Thanks Mum,  the books have proved to be friends over and over again and at times seemed to have saved my life.

I went to school near the Newtown library and my biggest ambition was to live in the council flat above the library - I figured it would be easy access to getting books.  In those days you had a cardboard library card with your 'number ' on it.  All the books had a removable card in the back - from a very young age I would remove the card, laboriously write my number on it before taking all the book cards up to the counter - then and only then, would the librarians stamp the return date in the book.  I absolutely loved the library - we didn't have many books at home and the library was a great escape route to the world. My ambition as an eight year old was to read all the books in the Childrens' section - when I did that I started using the Island Bay library - I have to admit that the Childrens' section wasn't enormous.

When my nieces and nephews were small they called me Aunty Books when they were small because I always gave them books for Christmas and birthdays - and in the case of a dyslexic niece, Audio Books.  Books have always been a vital part of my life and I know they always will.