TV-celeb Dame Mary Beard backs flooded bookshop suffering £20k damage
By Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter
TV-celeb Dame Mary Beard has backed an appeal supporting a flood-damaged book shop
Family-run Saqi Books in Westbourne Grove suffered £20,000 in flood damage after Monday night’s deluge.
The BBC’s Inside Culture and Civilisations star donated £400 to a crowdfunding appeal for the store, which specialises in Arabic publications and books about the Middle East and North Africa.
Dame Mary said: “This is a great bookshop and publisher at the forefront of opening up high quality books about the Middle East and North Africa. They fulfil a vital role.”
Bookshop director Lynn Gaspard said: “The flood damage was in the basement, it was dirty water and there was sewage. Everything on the lower shelves were damaged.”
Lynn faces the heartbreaking task of throwing away an estimated £20,000 worth of stock – about 2,000 books which were damaged by the water.
So far the appeal has raised more than £10,000 – over half its £15,000 target.
Lynn added: “We have hundreds of English language and Arabic language books. We have the biggest stock of Arabic books in Europe.
“A lot of our art books which were damaged are very difficult to replace.”
“Since first opening our doors almost half a century ago, we have survived wars, smashed windows, death threats, the bombing of our warehouse in Beirut during the 2006 war, and censorship of the books we publish.
“It’s fair to say that we have had our fair share of tough times. But the challenges of the last 18 months have been unprecedented.”
Lynn, who is also the publisher of Saqi Books, explained the team have been overwhelmed by support since they launched their crowdfunder.
She said: “There have been so many acts of generosity. We have been really buoyed up by the support from booksellers and readers in the UK and internationally.
“We were just able to reopen in full time in June because of the pandemic. Longer term the damp could be a problem because of the flood.”
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