Bookshop Bob did it his way...
TRIBUTES TO STORE OWNER WHO SERENADED CUSTOMERS WITH SINATRA SONGS
TRIBUTES have been paid to a quirky bookshop owner who serenaded his customers with songs by Frank Sinatra.
Robert Gutfreund-Walmsley, owner of Didsbury Village Bookshop behind the Art of Tea, passed away on November 27.
The 82-year-old, known as Bob, was hugely popular with shoppers – often engaging them in long conversations about politics and history.
He joked his customers were his ‘victims’ and was well known for his sayings like ‘keep it real’ and ‘respect man’.
A lifetime collector of books, Bob bought his shop on Barlow Moor Road around 12 years ago.
His family joked that it was the ‘perfect retirement package’.
Bob could often be found on his red leather seat surrounded by tightlypacked shelves drinking his flask of hot water with a squeeze of Jif lemon juice.
His small store was crammed from floor to ceiling with classics by Ernest Hemingway, George Eliot and Charles Dickens, along with an assortment of gardening books and dictionaries.
But his passion lay in hunting out the books at car boot sales and charity shops to add to his vast collection.
In the ‘good old days’, Bob would enjoy triple shot mochas from the Art of Tea cafe.
Later in life, he changed his order for health reasons to a black americano, consumed at 3pm every day after a ham sandwich. Bob was born in Budapest, Hungary, and grew up in the north east of England. He lived in Low Fell in Gateshead and Wallsend before moving to Durham, where he became a youth worker.
His family said he was an advocate of those who didn’t have a voice, particularly from different socio-economic backgrounds.
Bob also worked as an apprentice electrician in London and later became a university lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, based at the Didsbury campus. He had strongly held political beliefs and stood as a candidate in local elections for UKIP.
His close friend Damian Flanagan remembered him as a man ‘sporting a Geordie accent, a mischievous grin and distinctly defined personality’. “Watching at close quarters the often comical interactions between Bob and the many customers who hover, browse and circulate amongst his accumulated books was a daily joy”, he said.
Damian would often visit the ‘slightly maze-like and mysterious’ book shop to see his friend.
Philip Hayes, owner of the Art of Tea, said: “This was his life. When we first came here, this was his life seven days a week. He would go to Crewe for car boot sales looking for books. It was all about the hunt, the thrill of finding books.
“Before he came here (in the morning) he would search every single charity shop. He was always in the search for bounty. He wasn’t bothered about selling books. A lot of the customers used the shop as a library, he wasn’t too bothered.”
He added: “He would serenade all the familiar customers with his favourite artists – Johnny Mathis and Frank Sinatra.