Chapter Twenty-Three

Laurie Deval & Bob Fleck

In Which We Say Goodbye to an Old Friend and Meet A New One

Towards the end of 1981 members of the antiquarian book trade in Great Britain, and not least my wife and I, were much saddened by the lamentably early death of Laurie Deval, who was for many years Percy Muir’s partner in the firm of Elkin Mathews. He died of a brain tumour. He was only fifty-eight.

We had always regarded Laurie as a popular figure and were not surprised that the book-trade was well represented at his funeral service, which took place at a relatively early hour on a bitterly cold morning in a crematorium on the outskirts of Chelmsford. Hylton Bayntun-Coward came all the way from Bath; George Sims made the early morning journey from Reading; and several of the booktrade’s octogenarians turned out. What we did not expect was to see the entire population (or so it appeared) of the village of Takeley where Laurie had both his business and his home. We then discovered what should have come as no surprise to us: Laurie had been active in the village cricket club, the amateur dramatic society, the campaign against noise from nearby Stansted airport, and so on. His wife Mary and his daughters also played a full part in the life of the village.

I suppose that Jean and I first got to know Laurie and Mary because we were part of a set that gravitated together at the annual dinners of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. Rodney and Sonia Drake were part of the group as were Boris and Jean Harding-Edgar and Hylton and Charlotte Bayntun-Coward. Laurie was most people’s idea of the quintessential Englishman, red of cheek, firm of hand, quick to laugh and slow to bear a grudge. Hailing from Barking, he affected Cockney slang much of the time and if he wanted more beer in a public house he would call out for ‘two more jars of bitter please’. When I telephoned once to ask if I could call in on my way home from Cambridge he told me that he had a badly inflamed nose by declaring ‘I’ve got a bug in m’ hooter’. He was a good trencherman and a generous host. I have left till last the most important thing: he was a first-rate and very shrewd bookseller. He had a particularly good knowledge of typography and the printing arts in general, and often seemed more concerned to have the right book go to the right place than to secure every last penny for it.

When the attitude of some of those who were then the ABA Establishment caused some of us to lose patience with them over such matters as promoting book fairs and fighting auction rings, a group of men at the dinner table l have described put themselves forward for election to the committee. We were variously dubbed ‘The Ginger Group’ and ‘The Young Turks’. The first year that we stood not one of us was elected. In the second year I won the place previously held by Frank Hammond, an unashamed apologist for the ring. After that I could propose resolutions but I had enormous difficulty in finding a seconder, but in the third year Laurie was elected to sit alongside me and we worked together happily and, I like to think, effectively.

In Takeley Laurie had a cottage at one end of the village and Percy Muir a house at the other end. In the grounds of Percy’s house were two long wooden buildings with a cross-piece joining them together. They looked as though they might have been left over from an army camp but rumour had it that they were once chicken houses. From these buildings Elkin Mathews carried on their business. This was fine in the summer months but decidedly chilly in the winter. Takeley was just a few miles down the road from Bishop’s Stortford to Dunmow, which made it a useful stopping off place when I was going to buy books in Cambridge, or to visit Boris Harding-Edgar in Buntingford. There were always good things to buy (I remember a day when George Sims and I found a bundle of portrait drawings by Will Rothenstein and greedily snapped up all the representations of authors). There was always coffee or tea as well, and I cannot remember ever visiting Elkin Mathews without learning something useful about books and their makers from either Percy or Laurie. Percy moved away and went into semi-retirement in 1970, dying in 1980, just a year before his much younger colleague. When Mary decided that Laurie’s business had to be closed down and sold. l was proud to be asked to give her advice and help in this sad undertaking. Various divisions were made. Some of the better typographical items and the children’s books went to auction. I bought much of the English literature, but the reference library and the stock of bibliography I offered, on the advice of Nicolas Barker, to Robert Fleck of Oak Knoll Books who had started bookselling comparatively recently and whom I had never met. Bob flew in from Delaware to see the books for himself. I took to him right away because he showed a proper concern for Mary’s feelings as well as behaving in an honourable way and making her a fair price. I introduced him to Mary, showed him the arrangement of the stock, pointing out a number of the better things, not because I thought he would miss them but so that he should be aware that I knew they were there and that I would be looking for their value to be reflected in his final offer.

The preliminaries over, I left him to his task and for the next couple of days he tackled it most diligently. Then he rang to tell me he thought he would be ready with his figures on the following afternoon. He asked most particularly that I should go down to Takeley to be with Mary when he put his total to her. He also said he would like to explain to me first just how he had arrived at it. And he said that if I was not happy with it he would not put it to Mary at all. He added that if all went well he would like to take Mary and my wife and myself out for a quiet celebration dinner at which the business could be put behind us. He asked me where we might eat and I suggested the Foxely Hotel on the outskirts of Bishops Stortford. It was a hostelry much favoured by the partners in Elkin. Matthews when they were entertaining and it was, coincidentally, the hotel where Bob was staying. ‘Was it convenient for me?’ Bob asked. I said that it was only an hour’s run from our house but that since I didn’t want to drive backwards and forwards through the traffic that crowded London’s northern rim more often than was strictly necessary, I would bring my wife when I came to collect Bob in the afternoon and would leave her to read quietly in a corner of the lounge until we came back with Mary some hours later.

When we arrived at the Foxley next day I introduced Jean and Bob briefly and then discovered that the lounge was being used by a convention of salesmen and that there was nowhere else down-stairs to sit. Bob at once offered Jean the use of his room. He took her up, settled her in a chair, showed her where the telephone was and invited her to order a tray of tea on his account whenever she wanted one.

Then Bob went through his figures, section by section. Some he had put a little higher than I reckoned, others a little lower, but the final answer was more than satisfactory. Indeed I thought it would come as a pleasant surprise to Mary, and I would be able to recommend it wholeheartedly. Bob and I drove on to Takeley and went through everything again with Mary and with her brother, a bank manager, who was one of Laurie’s executors. They both professed themselves well satisfied and Bob and Mary shook hands on the deal. By the time we had made arrangements for packing and shipping it was not too soon to be heading back to the Foxley for dinner.

‘Had everything been satisfactory?’ Bob asked Jean.

‘Well’ said Jean. ‘At four o’clock I thought a cup of tea would be welcome so I picked up the phone but couldn’t get anyone to answer it. So eventually I went downstairs, found the reception desk and asked if I could have a tray of tea upstairs. ‘Certainly madam, what room?’ came the reply. At this point Jean realized she had no notion of Bob’s room number. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea’.

‘Well what name is it?’ asked the receptionist. And suddenly Jean heard herself saying ‘I only know him as Bob!’