David Macnaughton 1937-2006
Jane Margaret Laight
Edinburgh bookseller
The Independent
18 November 2006
Jennie Renton
For over 40 years David MacNaughton was one of the best-known figures
in the Scottish secondhand book trade. He opened his first bookshop,
the Book Cellar, in Dundas Street
in the heart of Edinburgh's New Town in 1967. Subsequently, he ran so
many bookshops, mainly in Edinburgh, but also in Berwick-upon-Tweed and
Dalmellington, that it was something
of a hobby among his fellow booksellers to try and work out how many he
had opened.
For 12 years the Book Cellar was one of the leading Edinburgh
bookshops. MacNaughton, a founder member of the Scottish Antiquarian
Booksellers Association, had a "nose" for a good book and his stock was
always full of interest and variety. Even visiting on an almost daily
basis as I did in the late Sixties, you could be sure that there would
be some fresh temptation.
Although a basement, the front shop of the Book Cellar was bright and
airy, the stock neatly and coherently arranged; down a flight of stairs
was another room, which contained a gallimaufry of books and
periodicals. More often than not, MacNaughton's sister Irene Moriarty
would be at the desk typing their latest catalogue and he himself was
often out hunting, whether responding to house calls or attending
auctions, which were then frequent in the city.
Three mornings a week, summer and winter, Lyon & Turnbull held sales in
Rose Street Lane South at the back of their George Street rooms,
offering an eclectic and unpredictable mix of goods. With scant time
for viewing and sometimes fierce bidding, the booksellers who attended
had to be able
to think on their feet. A few doors along, Dowells (subsequently
Phillips and now Bonhams) held large specialist book sales and even
their weekly household sales turned up unexpected gems.
Once, in the Book Cellar, David MacNaughton told me that he was
building up a collection of Foulis Press books and pamphlets from the
late 19th and early 20th century. He opened a deep drawer to reveal
what looked like hundreds of pristine examples, bound in delicately
coloured grey or fawn
card wrappers, the front covers embellished with images by art nouveau
artists such as Katherine Cameron and Jessie M. King. MacNaughton
beamed proudly. It was like being with a fisherman who had just made a
spectacular haul.
The Sixties and Seventies were something of a golden age for the trade,
although even then people were referring back to the apparently halcyon
conditions of decades before. Making a living in secondhand books
required strong wits and nerve, intellectual and physical energy.
If secondhand booksellers have one thing in common, it is that they are
diversely individualistic, with a singular tale to be told of how they
were drawn to their way of life. The son of an Edinburgh frame gilder,
MacNaughton left school at 15 and two years later joined the Royal Air
Force and was posted to Germany for three years. After that he spent
some time in London and his experience as a teleprinter operator
secured him work on Fleet Street with the Daily Mail and Reuters. He
loved the buzz of the newspaper world and being on the spot as news
broke - he saw news of the death of John F. Kennedy come in on the
wire. He usually worked nightshifts, by day trawling secondhand
bookshops and dreaming of becoming a secondhand bookseller in his own
right.
In 1975 MacNaughton married Kristina von Malmborg, from Sweden, in
1975. It was a true love match. Their hospitality at their home near
Duns in the Scottish Borders extended to hosting Bert Barrott's annual
West Port Books picnic, a gloriously eccentric affair. After Kristina
died in 1999,
David moved to Dalmellington in Ayrshire, inspired by the short-lived
dream that it might become a book town. His retirement was nominal, as
it is for many secondhand booksellers.
The warmth that typified David MacNaughton is summed up by the writer
Catherine Czerkawska's anecdote about their first encounter at an
auction in Ayr, following her purchase of an 18th-century bible. It
bore the name Elizabeth Maclehose, a relation of Robert Burns's
"Clarinda". MacNaughton, no doubt kicking himself for his unusual
oversight, was immediately caught up in Czerkawska's dream of
incorporating its story into a future novel. A spinner of possibilities
and natural storyteller, he recognised a kindred spirit, and another of
many friendships was forged.
Jennie Renton
David MacNaughton, bookseller: born Edinburgh 11 April 1937;
married 1975 Kristina von Malmborg (died 1999); died Ayr 22
September 2006.
[I met Mr MacNaughton when I went to Dalmellington with my Uncle Chuck
and two of my sisters and their families in the summer of 2001--a very
gracious and knowledgable gentleman--JML]