The Wednesday Profile #6 Bobbie's Bookshop

Photograph, Catherine Stevenson

Bobbie's Bookshop was situated at 181 Dalry Road for over thirty five years.

The shop sold scraps and paperbacks but the reason why I visited it was that it sold the best range of DC Comics around. 

It was an Aladdin's Cave for my Green Lanterns; Green Arrows; Superman; Batman and Robin; and Justice League of America comics.

I also picked up a few Classics Illustrated too.

Occasionally, my sister Anne might be along with me as the shop also sold scraps too.

Bobbie's had a highly unusual arrangement - if you returned books or comics then you would receive credit to be spent on further comics. Theoretically you could visit Bobbie's with no money at all, and instead trade comics.Whilst you would leave the shops with fewer comics than you entered with you were still going home with different comics to read - oh the anticipation!

If you also had money with you, even better! I guess it was a book exchange.

Back in the 1990s on a return visit to Edinburgh I looked out to Dalry Road for fun to see if the shop still existed - I couldn't believe my eyes - yes it did!

I ventured in and spoke to the owner for a wee while - he was retiring soon, closing the shop in a few weeks; for old times' sake I bought some DCs with the Bobbie's Bookshop imprint on them and thanked him for the wonderful service he provided to the community for decades.

On doing a little research I discovered the shop was also a newsagent and had been allegedly black-balled for a few years by the Sunday Mail and Daily Record for failing to open on New Year's Day 1967 to sell papers - evidently the locals supported his stance and switched their allegiance to other papers.

The Wednesday Profile #6 - Bobbie's Bookshop

Photograph, Catherine Stevenson

Bobbie's Bookshop was situated at 181 Dalry Road for over thirty five years.

The shop sold scraps and paperbacks, but the reason why I visited it was that it sold the best range of DC Comics around. 

It was an Aladdin's Cave for my Green Lanterns; Green Arrows; Superman; Batman and Robin; and Justice League of America comics.

I also picked up a few Classics Illustrated too.

Occasionally, my sister Anne might be along with me as the shop also sold scraps too.

Bobbie's had a highly unusual arrangement - if you returned books or comics then you would receive credit to be spent on further comics. Theoretically you could visit Bobbie's with no money at all, and instead trade comics.Whilst you would leave the shops with fewer comics than you entered with, you were still going home with different comics to read - oh the anticipation!

If you also had money with you, even better! I guess it was a book exchange.

Back in the 1990s on a return visit to Edinburgh I looked out to Dalry Road for fun to see if the shop still existed - I couldn't believe my eyes - yes it did!

I ventured in and spoke to the owner for a wee while - he was retiring soon, closing the shop in a few weeks; for old times' sake I bought some DCs with the Bobbie's Bookshop imprint on them and thanked him for the wonderful service he provided to the community for decades.

On doing a little research I discovered the shop was also a newsagent and had been allegedly black-balled for a few years by the Sunday Mail and Daily Record for failing to open on New Year's Day 1967 to sell papers - evidently the locals supported his stance and switched their allegiance to other papers.

Victor or Bunty?

Which comic was better-The Victor or the Bunty?

You might think that an answer should be based on one's gender, but I loved them both. I loved comics in general-the Hornet; the Hotspur; the Valiant, but also girls’ comics too which we got regularly from the Blades family who lived two floors up from us. With six sisters they used to pass down to me copies of the Bunty, Judy, Diane and Jackie. Because there might be up to six weeks in between it was great to get a whole run on a good story.

My Four Marys badge. Cool badge, eh?

The art work was superb and the stories were excellent. In addition to the 'Four Marys'-always good, there was usually a story line about a girl from a poor background or from a gypsy family-invariably she was a good sprinter and had to overcome obstacles to win the county championships-county championships-gosh what were they? They sounded exciting.

The Blades sometimes gave me some Classics Illustrated; I also recall some  Gold Key comics too. The Blades also passed comics on to the Hanlons'. These were very thoughtful gestures.

I supplemented these comics with those which I bought myself and also paid very regular visits to Bobbies Bookshop at Dalry Road, to buy DC Comics-Green Lantern; The Flash; Batman; Superman; Green Arrow.

The stories in the British weeklies were absolutely first class-and characters such as The Tough of the Track-Alf Tupper and Wilson the Wonder Athlete from the Hornet and the Victor were to inspire me for years into the future.

In future I will do a number of blogs on the comics of the 1960s, but I'd like to hear first from followers of The Stair, what your memories are. 

And so which one was better? On balance, it might have been the Bunty-but then the girls might disagree! But now that I think about it, I guess it was actually the Hornet-see below a 1964 edition which features The Hoffster's logo.