Michael Rosen: ‘There is no more important time to keep Bookmarks going’

MICHAEL Rosen is backing a fundraising appeal to save a radical bookshop in Blooms­bury as it approaches its 50th year.

The children’s author said Bookmarks, in Bloomsbury Street, was in “financial difficulties” and needed help.

The shop says it urgently needs £25,000 to “mitigate the effects of the pandemic” and secure its future.

Mr Rosen said: “For decades, Bookmarks bookshop has carried the torch for independent, left-wing, trade union and socialist thought. Now it’s facing financial difficulties.

“With the Tories reeling from their own scandals, corruption and mismanage­ment, an upcoming huge attack on standards of living and a Labour opposition seemingly unwilling to support working people’s fight for a better future, there is no more important time to keep Bookmarks going.”

The past two years of the pandemic have hit the shop hard as an extended closure and a huge fall in people visiting central London caused revenues to drop substantially.

Bookmarks, which was founded in 1973, is the official bookseller to the Trades Union Congress and usually holds many events throughout the year that have been called off due to Covid.

It also provides up-to-the-minute pamphlets and information for activists involved in employment and legal disputes. Novelty items include Lenin soap bars and anti-Tory mugs.

Online ordering has helped but organisers of the appeal say they have “come up against the limitations of our website and ordering systems” that need to be renewed.

The £25,000 would “help secure the future of the socialist bookshop”, the appeal said.

Donation can be made at the Bookmarks website.