LAST October, in London, I met a man who ran a big book warehouse down in Sussex he said it would be a very interesting place for me to visit. I could see the books coming in and the books going out and the fork lift trucks and the pallets and the storage right up to the ceiling, and the computers and the vans. He was one of those marvellous, enthusiastic people who love their work, and you'd easily get sucked into it.
But I am old and cautious nowadays. I said I might find it depressing to see books as just big parcels which came in and went out and, in the worst scenario, came back again.
No, he assured me they had a reverence for books.
Then I said I wasn't great at the old walking these days and I mightn't be able to do the warehouses justice. But he said he was sure we could get round that.
So, totally forgetting my father's great advice beware irony" I said we'd do a deal, if he could take off doors so I could drive into all these places and examine the books being stored to the ceiling, and if there was going to be mounds of food and lashings of drink and if a huge fuss would be made of me and if all the workers could have a half day in my honour, then I would certainly come and visit him in July. And he said fine, they would arrange, all that, and I wrote down July Terry Giles in my filofax and he wrote down July Maeve in his, and we parted the best of friends.
As in an increasing number of situations these days, I wasn't sure whether it was actually on or not. But letters arrived planning the event so off I went to Littlehampton in Sussex to see at first hand the business of book handling.
The taxi driver from the hotel said he couldn't believe it. In all his life he had known nothing like it there were instructions that he was to contact somebody and doors would be wrenched back and we were to drive right inside, and park at a place where a nice high stool would be waiting for me.
In we drove and I sat there regally, while forklift trucks came up and I examined their contents and waved them on, equally regally.
I looked with incomprehension ht the shelving, several storeys high, packed close with books. There was a very comprehensive chart on their computers showing what was there it wouldn't be like things in your own cupboard, where you might assume things were in this area or that. Let's suppose Eason's in Ireland or WHS Smiths in England or Menzies in Scotland wanted so many of a particular title then one of these men on a forklift truck with a sort of cherry picking attachment would drive down the right corridor and pluck out what was needed.
Then other people would organise that it would get packed up and off it would go to its destination.
Actually, it was very interesting watching them zoom up and down and realising that this was all due to some book buyer, somewhere, having put some faith in certain books.
It was also terrifying to see all that much opposition, if you're in the business yourself, and to realise all those trees that have gone into making the books, and to think about all the hopes and dreams that sit on those racks neatly wrapped and waiting like wallflowers at a dance until somebody comes and claims them on a forklift truck.
So then the taxi drove out again from this main warehouse in Durrington and up to Littlehampton itself, where Terry Giles showed me a table a mile long weighed down with sausage rolls and quiche and little prawns on biscuits and sandwiches and a great lemon pudding.
Is this enough food?" he asked anxiously, indicating that the drink table wasn't exactly sparse either. I never felt such a monster I had actually demanded all this as a sort of a joke and there it was in front of me.
The whole workforce came to the lunch, a lot of them wore T-shirts with Littlehampton on them, and the brass came and a photographer to capture the scene and for one of the shots he climbed up the scaffolding and we all waved up at him.
And I was introduced to the man who is in charge of Returns. This is a very unhappy area for an author to discuss ... the boxes of books which will come back to Littlehampton because nobody bought them ... so he and I were shruggy and matter of fact about it and said it could happen to the best of us.
And we ate and wee drank our fill, and I told them about the book distributing scene in Ireland, which amazingly I actually knew about. Most Irish publishers go through Gill and Macmillan, but Poolbeg and Columba/Mercier have their own distributors. I was so proud that I knew this fact I probably went on about it for too long.
Then they told me all the Irish booksellers they knew by name and whether they had hauled books out for them or addressed them or packed them or sent bills to them.
And then they were told they were having the rest of the day off which came as a huge great surprise and I put on a face like a bishop. We used to get a day off if John Charles McQuaid ever came to the school and he used to have a wise, knowing look, implying that all this was in his power and we didn't really deserve it but that he was nonetheless a man of hugely generous spirit.
And I once saw Charlie Haughey getting a school a half day and oddly he had exactly the same look, so I tried to assemble it on my features, but I'm afraid it looked like a leer.
So another taxi driver came into the warehouse to collect me and told me he would tell the lads on the rank and they wouldn't believe it they must have removed doors or something, he said in awe.
AND to celebrate all the excitement we had a weekend touring West Sussex which is gorgeous. It's actually like some thing dreamed UP by a Hollywood producer, all little villages with thatch and duck ponds and endless green rolling hills and tumbling flowers.
Places are called East Wittering and West Wittering and a village where we had a very good lunch in a pub was called, unbelievably, Burpham.
What brought you to this part of Sussex?" a chap in a deer stalker hat asked me. Most visitors had come to see the castles, downs, the Roman" villas, even the English wineries.
I came to see a warehouse," I said. Super," he said, disappointed.
But that's because he hadn't been there and he couldn't have known how marvellous it had been.