It’s the end of an era as a woman who has run a book shop in Lindley for almost 50 years prepares to close the doors for the last time.
Sonia Benster, 86, has been a mainstay of Lidget Street since she opened The Children’s Bookshop in 1975.
In that time she attracted some big-name authors to Lindley – the likes of illustrator Quentin Blake, Horrible Histories author Terry Deary, Gervais Phinn and Play School and Play Away presenter Floella Benjamin – and also inspired a love of reading in thousands of children.
The Children’s Bookshop was taken over by Nicola Lee in 2015 but Sonia remained in the same building with an antiquarian book business, Benster Books, working with her husband Barry, an avid antiquarian book collector.
Barry, a former gynaecologist at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, died in 2021 but had amassed thousands of books which Sonia sold online.
Sonia continued to trade from the same premises when The Children’s Bookshop moved further down Lidget Street last year but now it’s time to bring a near half-century chapter to a close.
“The time has come and I’ve no regrets,” said Sonia. “It’s been a wonderful odyssey and a learning curve from day one. It’s all about the people you meet and the friends that you make.”
Sonia has inspired generations of children to read. The youngsters from the 1970s are now in their 50s, many with grandchildren of their own.
“I get people coming into the shop who say they first came here as children and they get all misty eyed and go soft on me,” she said.
While a lot of books have been sold since her husband died, Sonia estimates she must still have around 9,000 left!
What she’s planning to do is have a big sale with at least 20% off everything. The sale will run from Saturday October 19 to Saturday October 26 and the shop will be open every day.
The rarest items will be sold on a specialist website but the rest – on all manner of subjects from local history, buses, trains, cars and sport to gardening, biographies, politics, history, Ladybird books and annuals – will be up for grabs in the shop.
“As a collector Barry had a habit of putting items of ephemera inside books,” said Sonia. “This could be a letter from a Prime Minister or whatever and all these years later it could turn out that this little piece of paper may be far more valuable than the book itself!
“I’ve learned a lesson from that so we always look inside but people may still get more than they bargained for if they buy a book from us.”
Sonia says there will be plenty of bargains for those with a little knowledge of what they’re looking for.
Barry bought most of his books in the 1990s and many will have gone out of fashion.
“Books that were quite expensive at the time may have lost value totally,” she said. “While things you don’t expect, like a miserable little pamphlet on old Morris Minors, might be worth a small fortune. There’s definitely hidden treasure here.”
Sonia, who has two children Beverly and Daniel, opened The Children’s Bookshop in 1975 after a confrontation with a librarian who wouldn’t allow her to take out a full seven books on each of her children’s library tickets.
When a shop came up for rent – at £3 a week – she decided to take the plunge. Sonia “worried myself silly” about whether she’d be able to keep up with the rent so Barry said he’d lend her £2,000 to get started.
The loan, however, came with the condition that if there was ever a year she made a loss, she would repay the money and stop.
While the shop never made huge profits – except when Sonia bought a batch of SATS books for teachers and cornered the market for a while – it always held its own.
At first Sonia rented the shop from Mrs Dobson whose father had run a barber’s shop there. Eventually she bought it and gradually expanded, first into what was once a lemonade factory and then further back into where a garage and an outside toilet once stood.
When she finally closes the shop, which she expects to be before Christmas, she plans to lease the building which is set to become offices.
Despite telling everyone she’s “nearly 90”, Sonia isn’t about to retire. She’ll continue to sell the rarest and most collectible books online from home and might even set up her own website.
Sonia, who has four grandsons Matthew, Josh, Khalil and Osho, is still in rude health but feels the need to “clear the decks.”
“Why wait for someone else to have to do it?” she said. “While I’m not on the immediate blink, who knows what’s going to happen? I was never a girl guide but ‘be prepared’ sounds like a good motto.”
There will still be a mountain of books to be disposed of, even after the shop closes and Sonia said: “I don’t think I’ll ever retire. There’s still too much to do.”
Sonia also has some shelving and fixtures and fittings that she’s willing to donate to anyone just starting out in a retail business.
The shop is at 37-39 Lidget Street, Lindley, HD3 3JF, and will be open every day between Saturday October 19 and Saturday October 26 between 11.30am and 2.30pm.
The Children’s Bookshop is now at 80 Lidget Street, Lindley, and here is our story from 2023 when it moved.
