World Book Night - Part 2

World Book Night turned into a book day for me.  The night part was something it turns out I wasn’t to be part of. 

It was an interesting day.  At first I thought the task of distributing 48 books would be daunting.  By the time I’d separated out what I'd already promised and what I needed to randomly hand to strangers, 48 books really wasn't that much at all.

When I’d gone to my local Waterstones to collect my books the nice and friendly member of staff I spoke with informed me that they were hosting a World Book Night event on the Saturday evening and that I should call in.  It sounded good, I selfishly thought it may be a chance to grab a few free copies of other books on the reading list.  I called round a few friends and made arrangements to change our plans so that we could attend. 

When separating the books I kept some in reserve for the book event and along with a friend took the rest to the local farmers/cultural market. 

I’m used to approaching random people these days.  I’m usually asking for some assistance, but when people see you with something in your hand they automatically become suspicious.  Some automatically told me that they weren’t interesting in anything religious.  My book was set in a Monastery, but didn’t think that counted, so told them it wasn’t.  Once past that most were receptive.  Some had heard about the event and seemed quite pleased.  Others bemused.  Some just not interested at all.  But it was quite a nice experience and over all too quickly.

When it came to the event in Waterstones things didn’t go as planned.  I’d arranged to meet some friends there.  When I arrived one of my friends told me that he thought the event was upstairs and he couldn’t see a lift anywhere.  We asked a member of staff.  He seemed bemused and ran off upstairs to find out.  When he returned he told us that the event was indeed on the first floor and that they didn’t have access to a lift during the weekends as their lift access was in an adjoining office building which was closed at the weekends.  He whimpered an apology and then he left us to it.

I was slightly in shock.  The girl I’d spoken to on Thursday was clearly aware of my chair, but hadn’t thought that it might be an issue.  We were still waiting on another friend to join us and as it was cold outside I told my friends we’d wait inside.  After about 10 minutes a lady came and introduced herself as the manager and apologised, again explained the situation about lift access and told us that she was embarrassed.  She was embarrassed? I couldn’t even begin to tell her how I felt.  What I did do, though was tell her that it was her staff who’d originally informed me of the event and invited me along.  They were aware when informing me that I was using a chair.

At this point, as way of an apology and my inconvenience, she offered me a £25 gift card, which I of course took, but it did still put a bit of a downer on the night.  My friends obviously didn’t get to the event in the end as they came with me to grab some food.  The food was good and the company was good but at the same time I was still aware that we should have been elsewhere.

All in all though it was a good experience and one I’d offer to partake in again.