"We are desperately sad to announce the tragic death of Alan Clifford, co-founder and Managing Director of Methvens / samedaybooks.co.uk, in a road accident on Wednesday 27th December 2006.
Alan was a wonderful colleague with a deep love of books and bookshops, and will be greatly missed by all in the Company and all those who knew him in the trade."
I have worked for Alan for eight years and indeed, it was on his encouragement that I found the confidence to display some of my artwork in the Worthing shop. When I asked him what his favourite pieces were - of those he had seen on this blog - he replied, "Oh, nothing offensive but then again... any that would cause enough outrage to get us in the press." Always contrary.Showing my art work in the Worthing shop was to be the first time I've ever shown my art work publicly. Though I am not family or even a peer, I felt moved to write my own piece for Alan because he was exactly the sort of boss everyone hopes to have when they start a new job and because in more formal obituaries that will be read by interested peers in the book trade, I doubt that his staff will have a voice.
When talking among colleagues at work about Alan today, we were able to joke that at least he'll finally have one good article that mentions the company in 'The Bookseller' magazine. Even now, we can laugh because that is what we remember most of Alan: his great humour. We also remember that there was a particular way that Alan would p-a-u-s-e, lean back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose, try not to say the very first thing that had come to mind.
If there are many ways to say 'You're so wrong, you're not even right...' then one of his more memorable quotes - at least for those of us at Methvens - was: 'You're a retailer, not a librarian!' Alan taught us all that the only way of seeing a bookshop was as a customer. He also taught us the original dance steps for moving your booty to Status Quo.
I'm willing to bet that Alan was also the only Managing Director of a UK company to have been quite literally shoveling sh*t when a vital call from The City has come through for him on his mobile. One thing that marked Alan out as different from all other bosses was that he'd not only lead from the front but be in the trenches with his 'troops'. Working for Methvens is not like working for other companies: it is fun and has had more in common with a chaotic day out at the family picnic with too many firecrackers, water pistols, flour bombs and not enough responsible adults.
The last time I saw Alan was in the staffroom at the Worthing branch. He had been passing by when he saw that I was playing darts. He came in and laughing, said: 'I just don't want to know what Health & Safety are going to make of that!' For many of his colleagues, that was Alan in essence: he never had time for the rules or the 'accepted way' of doing things but simply let his staff get on with the job of selling books. That's why Methvens - or samedaybooks, as you might know us - is still around when two larger rivals have gone the way of shark bait.
Though I knew Alan better than many of my own relatives, I would never claim to have known him not as family or friend or even boss. For me, he was just Alan, as he was to many of us in the book trade.
Today, I rediscovered a quote I found quoted in Richard Holloway's 'Looking in the Distance', and these words seemed the most fitting for what we feel at Methvens. The quote comes from a writer called Miguel De Unamuno:
"Man is perishing. That may be; and if it is nothingness that awaits us let us so act that it will be an unjust fate."
