A Recollection of the
WEA Bookroom – Ivone Kirkpatrick
It was my first job. The WEA Bookroom, and Ethel Payne was the
manager.
It was the bookshop for the University, and for the WEA -
for people thirsty (perhaps hungry) to learn.
My first work was out the back room. I was to bring the
books in off the trucks, un-wrap the parcels but, “Do not touch the books”. In
the back room with me was a woman with a strong Austrian accent, and different
age bracket. She was as shy as I then was.
Sadly we hardly communicated.
After several weeks I was unable to contain my frustration
at being restricted to carrying and unwrapping parcels. “I love books,” I told
Ethel. “Please can I actually touch the books and tick them off against the
invoices?”
Ethel’s response was clear and decisive.
“If that’s what you want, do it.”
A couple of weeks later I was getting anxious about being
stuck in the back room. The books, and people browsing the books, were out in
the bookshop. I told Ethel: “I love books and I love people. Can I be in the
bookshop sometimes?”
“Don’t ask - do it,” she said.
She gave me the list of Penguin Books, with responsibility
to maintain the section daily. I said I wanted to add richness to the bookshop
and keep in stock, if possible, one of every Penguin from two particular sections
of the list, not simply stock multiple copies of texts. She said: “Don’t ask,
do it”.
So I did it.
Sometime later I pointed out that I’d like to include all
the paperbacks in my responsibilities, so she gave me that section too. As a
result, we started importing books, nefariously, direct from the USA. These
were books by radical American authors and previously unavailable to us through
the proper British sources.
I ordered them from the catalogues and Ethel just let me do
it and didn’t check what I was doing. She said: “Do it”.
Ethel was about action and she trusted me, an inexperienced
young man at that time, to do it.
I started bringing in these radical American writers. Beat
poets and writers like Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti and political radicals. From
then on she led me up the ladder to the position of assistant manager.
I thought of Ethel as the first feminist I’d ever met. For a
while I was the only man in the bookshop. It was an interesting situation.
She was adored by the male academics. That was my
perception. She had this coterie of articulate, intelligent young academics
around her, who clearly loved and respected her. Ethel was a feminist, a true
feminist in that she was biased neither towards women nor men. She was a really
special person.
She was a strong, grounded decision maker, brilliant at
giving responsibility and making people feel good about that. So, to a large
degree the staff ran the WEA Bookroom.
When the University of Adelaide bought the WEA Bookroom and
moved it to the lower level of the campus, Ethel did all the discussions with
architects Dickson and Platten. As she was going on leave, she left me to
continue discussions about practical aspects of the internal fitting out of the
shop. It was another delegation of trust.
I’m proud to have been involved in what ended up a beautiful
interior, due to the architects’ inspiration.
At the same time, there had been something about the old WEA
Bookroom. It was tiny, and quaint in its own peculiar style. It had a wonderful
dynamism. Laughter, commitment and love of people, learning and books abounded.
It wasn’t how I had been brought up to believe work to be.
It was focused and fun.
Now here I am back with the WEA, years later, this time presenting
programs like “The Influential Communicator”, leadership and negotiation. The feeling
is reminiscent of the bubbling Bookroom. It’s still about people thirsty to learn.
Excitingly, it’s fresh bunches of people.
This story is reproduced with permission and is a revised
edition of the story by Ivone Kirkpatrick originally published in A Touch of Class – how the WEA changed my
life (2003), Edited by David Schuppan
and Caroline Cleland.
