THERE is some evidence that in these strange days people are getting fed up with small and large screens and turning back to the leisurely love of books.
“Books are the original; drama on television is nothing compared to stage or theatre; a photo of the Mona Lisa is a pale shade of the real thing in the Louvre in Paris.”
Damian Cash hits the nail on the head – facsimiles are only facsimiles, reproductions of the real thing.
Today a tablet is an electronic aid; however, the original tablet, as far back as 3,400BC, was the first book – usually clay with marks made with a stick and still those ancient hieroglyphics fascinate the experts.
It’s been proved that learning through the printed page impacts differently on the brain and knowledge is retained more readily than from a screen. You visualise the story or the academic information set out, you have to concentrate rather than let your mind wander to other things when in front of a screen, you can pick up a book and set it down, use a bookmark, make notes in the margins if you want to...
But try reading a book on Kindle and you’re all over the place, looking for the blue marker or trying to go back to check on something. Give me a proper book any day.
And, outside a library, where do you find the biggest selection and the widest variety of printed word in Belfast? Try the Linen Hall Library charity bookshop in College Street. Ask the custodian Damian how many books surround him and he’ll shrug his shoulders, look around and tell you at least a couple of thousand.
This is Damian Cash’s spiritual home
Damian joined as a volunteer in 2012 and is now managing the eighth location of the shop.
“We’re a travelling circus; we rely on the goodwill of those with property available for us to spread out our books. We’re always on a month's notice so when anyone comes in and, rather than looking through the books they’re looking up at the ceiling, I immediately know they are viewing a commercial prospect!”
At one time Damian was a Fleet Street lawyer in London where his local was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub rebuilt after the 1666 Great Fire of London and known for its literary association. Here Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Tennyson and Conal Doyle were among the regulars – and so was Damian Cash. Was this where his love of books was born?
“I think it goes back a lot further than that, to the days when my father took me to the barber's on the Whitewell Road and as I was waiting I leafed through the pile of comics and often Bertie would say, ‘Sure hold on to one son, take it home’. I was fascinated, not only the comic pages but the more in-depth stories as well.”
His volunteering began when the first bookshop opened and his knowledge and his delight in his responsibilities are obvious.
“Things happened in bookshops!" He picked up a small book of photographs by Northern Ireland Tourist Board photographer Bill Kirk, a photo essay on Sandy Row's Clondyke Bar, moody black-and-white memories, and attached to the inside back cover, pinned by a paper clip, was the newspaper report of the 1976 bomb that killed and maimed and demolished the building.
People often keep things in books, I know that for a fact. I got a phone call at work one day asking me if I’d donated some cook books to an Action Cancer shop. Yes I had. “Well,” said the man, “I bought one and your marriage certificate and birth certificate were inside.”
A choice Joyce
Some books are worth a lot of money, a fact that Damian will point out to the customer if there is value in any of them – although, as yet, there hasn’t been an original copy of James Joyce's Ulysses, which was confiscated as an obscene publication at the time of publishing.
“The Postal Museum at Mount Pleasant sorting office in London have one which they withheld as, being banned, it couldn’t be sent through the post," Damian says. "I sent them an email asking if I could come and view it, more in hope than expectation. It’s a little-known museum, on average only eight people attend each day, so it was obviously a real privilege to see the book which was published in Paris one of only 1,000 numbered copies.
Interesting that one first edition was sold some time ago for a record £275,000; interesting too that our Linen Hall Library has a 1922 first edition.
But more extraordinary was the day a customer came in to chat to Damian rather than donate a book. He was carrying Tesco bag and inside was a Ulysses...
“Bought 30 years ago for £30 at an auction in Glengormley. Value today in access of £17,000. Unfortunately it wasn’t one of the signed copies which could fetch over £70,000.”
The Linen Hall Library is home to the greatest Irish collection in the world, among other treasures – most of them bequeathed or donated by the public, some coming through the bookshop where they are spotted and passed on.
“We have faithful and loyal volunteers and we all realise the importance of looking out for rare books which are put to one side to be investigated more fully, so every time we have donations you never know what will turn up.”
You might like to take a look at the books you have and perhaps offer some to the Linen Hall Library bookshop and if one is worth £70,000 Damian will certainly bring it to your attention!
“We take everything except academic or old school books because they go out of date very quickly,” he explains. “No big sets either, the likes of encyclopaedias or the condensed Readers Digest – the only thing that should be condescend,” he adds, “is soup.”
:: The bookshops is open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am to 4pm (https://linenhall.com/visit-us/gifts-belfast-2/).
