Thread by @TripeUK

🎄Eric's Christmas Story (Thread)

One late November night, retired librarian and amateur local historian Dr Eric K Shipley was lying in bed, unable to sleep.

Outside, the wind howled like a merciless banshee, litter danced angrily in the street and cats skulked their way down alleyways as a brooding sky threatened rain.

But that's enough superfluous descriptive narrative. What's Eric thinking as he tosses and turns under the bedclothes? He's worried about his book, Forgotten Yorkshire, that's what.

Launched on an unsuspecting public in Ossett in 2017, the book had had a rocky start.
Eric's book was the subject of a vituperative review by a man he thought he had been assisting by taking on the task of writing Forgotten Yorkshire.
greatbritishlife.co.uk/things-to-do/2…

After a modest few months of sales, the book then found itself sinking down the Amazon charts, mired amongst the countless millions of books lurking on the monolithic shopping website. Eric soon forgot about it.

This is Eric, by the way. He's a stolid Yorkshireman, easily able to shrug off the minor embarrassment of his book not becoming a bestseller. Local history isn't everyone's cup of tea, after all.

But what he wasn't prepared for was the shame and ignominy, the humiliation, dishonour and contempt he would shortly face (perhaps because he'd mislaid his thesaurus during a ruthless tidying up of his study in late 2020).

Fellow librarians began whispering behind his back. Librarians are renowned for speaking in quiet tones, so their whispers can reach remarkably low levels when they really put their mind to it. Fingers were pointed at him by passing colleagues. Tuts were even heard.

It was some time before Eric discovered the reason for their disapprobation. His beloved Forgotten Yorkshire book - the result of almost a fortnight of painstaking research - had been reduced on Amazon to just 99p.
amazon.co.uk/dp/0993407552/

Eric was immediately crestfallen. Who would buy a book at such a price? Any sane individual would imagine the product was a pamphlet, a comic, a magazine or - even worse - an e-book.

He took to spending more time in his office at work, to avoid his colleagues' sneering. Worse was to come, as word soon spread in the close community of Ossett and Eric found himself the subject of mirth and even scorn. Even buying a daily newspaper became a ritual humiliation.

Then, that night, while lying in his bed tortured by these thoughts of rejection, the first dim glimmer of hope emerged. He would look to his roots and apply all the learning that his parents had imbued him with when he was a child sitting at their knees.

His mother had been a successful catalogue agent for Littlewoods. Unbeknownst to the company, she was also acting as a double agent for Tupperware and Avon, and only her advancing years prevented her joining Ann Summers.

Eric's father, meanwhile, had spent his formative years working for a large London record company, responsible for touring the country and relieving record shops of unwanted 45rpm singles. More latterly, he had established a successful Aloe Vera franchise.

Surely, Eric thought, there was a way to draw on their experience, to salvage something from this sorry episode, so that his little 99p book could become a force for good? The beginnings of a plan slowly began to form, just as the first shards of light poked through his curtains.

To be continued.

Meanwhile, nip across here and buy 3 copies of Eric's comic.
The TMB are donating £2 for every copy sold in November 2022 to @PlaceKaths food bank.
amazon.co.uk/dp/0993407552/

Is this true, @Pippisell and #LibrarianTwitter?