Bookhounds?

[Bookman]

I don't know, I sort of see Southampton Row as both too nice and not quite right for having the kind of knocked together shop we are thinking about.

My two thoughts would be:

For a more Bohemian, shabby but not sordid shop I would pitch for Fitzrovia, possibly Rathbone Place or Charlotte Street, or if we wanted slightly off road, Percy Street. Fitzrovia has the advantages of being just on the edge of Soho (but not actually part of it), having the slightly Bohemian chic (Dylan Thomas, Julian MacLaren-Ross, Augustus John, Quentin Crisp, etc.), several very good pubs where EVERYbody drinks (including the eponymous Fitzrovia), it has the right sort of atmosphere for down at heel and slumming aristos with intriguing tastes and Orwell features the Newman Arms on Rathbone Place in Keep the Aspidistra, which is a great tie-in for a slightly down-at-heel shop. Plus, and most significant for this kind of gig, our old friend Aleister drinks regularly at the Wheatsheaf so it is slap bang in the right kind of territory for his disciples to pop in and out of the shop to buy his latest recommendations. Also it features in Patrick Hamilton's books and I cannot get enough of

To play up the more sordid, criminal aspect of the shop, as well as the winding houses, Seven Dials, perhaps Earlham Street. It has the edge of Covent Garden (so rich socialite playground) whilst being in a once notorious slum (there is some clean up by this point but Christie's Seven Dials has it as a still poor area), it is on the edge of the Charing Cross Road and thus near the booksellers' run in Cecil Court, it is famous for its occult connections (as flagged in the Liber and Ian Sinclair's writing), it has nice psychogeographic hotspots such as The Angel (lovely tiling) where people stopped for a last bowl on the way to the Tyburn Tree and St Giles church which had a leper hospital attached under the auspices of the Order of St Lazarus (a military and hospitallers order which fielded leper knights at the Crusades), it has the mysterious sundial ornament, it fits the dodgy aspect of the shop without becoming a Soho type bookstore. On the other hand it might be a little close to Watkin's and thus legitimate competition.

The only thing is that both of these might be a little cliche. I think we still want City/Piccadilly area for the kind of clientele and for the type of game, so I hesitate before suggesting Ranston Street off the Edgeware Road or down in Surrey Docks just up from Rotherhithe or similar. I suppose it depends on whether we want footfall traffic or are going to be pretty much word of mouth (in which case we could be down Ely Place by the wonderful Mitre in Hatton Garden, or down Crown Passage in St James which gives us the Red Lion) and whether we see ourselves as Bohemian (in which case Bloomsbury is a good location as well as Fitzrovia), sordid (in which case we might just as well be on Dean Street (mmmm, The French House) or traditional bookseller (in which case Cecil Court is just right even with Watkin's) or selling to aristocratic crowds (in which case we probably want something on Mayfair like Curzon Street but I think that would be out of our price bracket).

I kind of see us as shabby but not sleazy (even with the criminal aspect and French...Art books), with a mostly word of mouth crowd but close enough to get some passersby (even if they rarely come back...). Where that puts us...thoughts?

[Grafster]

Glad to see discussion of location. I like a lot of the locations mentioned.

I would mention one thing to think about it setting the location:

I assume the bookshop hasn't moved since it was Willey's Military Bookshop (Established 189x? 188x?) to serve a military/aristocratic clientele. I see that going two ways
1. Someone (with more knowledge of London and its historical developments than me) could propose a location based on what makes sense given that initial decision by Willey. (i.e. he's not looking for foot traffic, but he does want to be near military gentlemen's clubs, academies, housing, or something similar)
2. We pick a location based on the kind of in game environment we want and just hand wave it by saying "the neighborhood sure has changed a lot since Willey first set up shop here.

The more expensive the neighborhood the more that Grant is struggling to pay the rent and keep from moving.

[AndrewTBP]

I don't know, I sort of see Southampton Row as both too nice and not quite right for having the kind of knocked together shop we are thinking about.

I'm a Sydneysider, not a Londoner, so I'm no expert, I liked the image of Luke swinging off the tram. I've since found this map http://www.tundria.com/trams/GBR/London-1934.shtml which should help a bit. I'm pretty sure the bookshop isn't on the Victoria Embankment.

[andyw666]

Equally, my geography of London is very sketchy. I rather like '84 Charing Cross Road', so is Charing Cross Road too expensive I wonder?

Think Jory's only requirement is that there be a nearby decent 'watering hole' but my actual experience of London is that there seems to be a pub approximately every three feet, so that shouldn't be a problem!

[Taavi]

Most of the Military clubs (United Services, Army & Navy, Cavalry, Guards, etc) whose members would be ideal clients are on piccadilly, pall mall, St James Park, etc, which is probably way out of our class.
What about we go for seedy Soho or Seven Dials and say that our Bookshop is next to a building which formerly housed a, ah, house of ill repute, which catered to military gentlemen, who used to pop in while they were in the neighbourhood, or used visiting it as an excuse?
Being a Melbournite, I like trams, but am happy to do without a tramway, I can always have hopped off an omnibus instead.

[Grafster]

Not to derail the location discussion....

I think we are very close to being able to begin; I have some questions about characters, but I think we can flesh them out during play over time.

With regard to combat: this is my concern. While extreme lethality is a common part of CoC games it is somewhat mitigated, by design, in ToC. People aren't signing up to insta-kills (at least not without some advance warning).
Because combat is rare, and the bidding system is quite different than "typical" rpg games I am concerned that when we do have a fight the newness of the system may confuse or stress out new players. I think that having a brief conflict in the recent past that involved the characters of players who are interested (the flashback recommendation) is a good way to go.
I think that andy666 and Andrew have expressed interest with Dr. Bloodworth neutral.
So the encounter will have involved Grant and Capt. Jory breaking up a fight between two unruly patrons that becomes unexpectedly dangerous.

We should fix the neighborhood before we start. I am happy to have people discuss it and come to a mutually agreed decision, or we can just vote. I'll leave it til Friday and see what the status is.

When we do start I am going to try to work it so that people are engaged and together, relatively quickly, however some characters have stronger connections to the bookstore than others, so it might take time before people are equally involved. I will try to make sure that everyone has something going on at the get go.

I'll ask Raiko to make a forum for us.

[Grafster]

Kelvin Grant

Bookseller

Kelvin Grant was born in 1874 in Saltaire, Yorkshire. He won a scholarship to the City of London School, and moved to London, where he lived with his uncle who owned Willey's Military Bookshop. Grant worked in the bookshop while at school and afterward and knew the clientele's tastes well. He inherited the bookshop in 1902 while serving in South Africa as a volunteer.

Volunteer means voluntary military service? Or actual volunteer work. Either way fill in a little bit about what he did in S. Africa if you would.
What was the relationship between Willey and Fuller?

Since then, the bookshop has gradually declined. Renamed Grant's Military Bookshop in 1922, it is no longer the fine Victorian establishment where his uncle, a lifelong bachelor, provided specialist literature to officers, cadets and other ranks. Only the hard-nosed acumen of Mrs Grant, who caught Grant's attention at the Empire, has kept it on an even keel.

Don't follow what "the Empire" is.(Yank... sorry...)

[Bookman]

I am guessing Empire Ballroom?

Charing Cross Road is legendary for booksellers (although less so as the Council seems to be trying to force them out in exchange for trendy shops to cater to the people who...were coming because of the bookshops...hey ho). Foyles is another of the classic shops, I have David Low's very good autobiography called With All Faults which has a lot of period detail on the Charing Cross Road/Cecil Court of the 30s and 40s. Seven Dials is just off to the side from there, on the way to Covent Garden. It would indeed be the kind of place which would have knocking shops and probably ones which supplied rich types because of that proximity. There was a famous occult bookshop in the area in the 19th century where Bulwer-Lytton was a customer: http://danharms.wordpress.com/2008/10/1 ... hn-denley/ and more recently Treadwell's were there before their move to off the Tottenham Court Road. The Road would be a solid spot for the shop although it is close to Watkin's on Cecil Court would be the (real life) rivals.

Trams are nice, unfortunately most of that central West End area was covered by the underground so there was less need for them. You kind of need to move further out, particularly South of the River where there was less of an Underground presence.

Taavi is right about the military clubs and so on. Pall Mall etc. would be fiendishly expensive and much of the shop frontage is already taken. Piccadilly is the kind of place that Berry Bros and Rudd and Henry Sotheran are based, on one side is clubland and Jermyn Street and the other is Saville Row, not to mention Mayfair on the edge. Serious moneys.

Soho and Seven Dials have the advantage of being close to the action (ten minutes or so walk from the Army and Navy puts you in Soho proper and fifteen in Seven Dials more or less, these are not distances anyone would think twice about in London, Horse Guards is only ten/fifteen minutes or so as well). There are plenty of pubs in both areas. Seven Dials boasts one of the oldest pubs in London, the Lamb and Flag, which used to be known as the Bucket of Blood because of the bare-knuckle matches which took place there. Also The Angel which as I mentioned was a last stop on the way to Tyburn and has great tiling. Soho for instance has the Dog and Duck on Bateman Street also with the most gorgeous interior tiling. Soho at this point has a heavy gay scene, a lot of seedy clubs and large gang presence from Mafia and Triads which may or may not be a problem. According to O'Donnell it is full of secret societies as well. Halfway between the two is the Blue Posts on Rupert Street which I am sure features in the O'Donnell Secret Societies based on his description. There are many more. The Salisbury on St Martin's Lane if you are going to Cecil Court for instance.

Having said which, a Fitzrovia of the period would probably have the odd house of ill repute, has a lot of good pubs (and bad...), nice Bohemian credentials and the presence of Crowley so that would work as well.

I had forgotten to consider the origins of the shop. I actually now disagree with myself. It is much less likely that such a shop would have grown up in Seven Dials during the late Victorian era considering that it was then one of the worst rookeries in the city. Likewise Soho would be unlikely for the kind of patrons there would have been at that point (well, unless we think about Uncle's like for gentlemen in uniforms). Fitzrovia was nicely posh at the time but still affordable for that kind of shop. The artistic part grew from the 20s so the shop could totally have started in one type of place and ended up in another, relying on the memories of punters and surviving word of mouth. Also I really like the Crowley connection (and Evan Morgan, Peter Warlock et al) so I think I might edge Fitzrovia but am open to other suggestions. I would also mention that all of Fitzrovia, Soho, Holborn, The Strand, Charing Cross, Seven Dials and St Giles, Piccadilly, Mayfair, Whitehall, Westminster and so on are all actually very close and easily walkable if you know the area. Add the tube and the buses and the number of locations flies up. The parts of London that people think of as 'London' are very close, it just seems spread out when you only use the underground to get to them.

Edit: I am going to take a point of library use (as we have several people with that) and put it into languages to take Enochian, assuming that is a valid choice. I have been reading far too much Dee recently not too and it fits perfectly with a study of Renaissance Magic, as well as helping read the strange things in the back room. It also works with hanging out with remnants of the Golden Dawn and Crowleyites. A thesis on Dee's influence on or appearances in Elizabethan and Jacobean witchcraft plays would be about right. Lots of magical theory and literature and Latin, Hebrew and Enochian.

[AndrewTBP]

Volunteer means voluntary military service? Or actual volunteer work. Either way fill in a little bit about what he did in S. Africa if you would.

What was the relationship between Willey and Fuller?

Don't follow what "the Empire" is.

Voluntary military service, yes. Grant was a junior officer in a Volunteer Battalion of The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) during the 2nd Boer War.

Fuller is 4 years younger than Grant, so he may have made Uncle's heart race, but he was just a customer. Uncle was very careful. Grant and Fuller were both in South Africa, but different regiments, so their paths may have crossed only a few times. They've exchanged reminiscences since then, of course. Fuller's been a bookshop regular for 3 decades now.

It's the Empire Theatre of Varieties, Leicester Square's most popular music hall. Grant and the future Mrs Grant were there the night Winston Churchill made his maiden public speech to the "Ladies of the Empire".
http://victoriancalendar.blogspot.com/2 ... mpire.html

PS I don't need a practice combat, but Grant would certainly defend his bookshop and customers.
PPS I'm OK with a Fitzrovia location.

[andyw666]

I definitely vote Charing Cross Road solely because of Helen Hanff and Marks & Co, if it can be done! Otherwise, will leave it to the experts on London.

Jory awaits the combat, with a slight tremor in his breathing...

[Raiko]

Sorry guys, I meant to create your forum yesterday evening, but didn't get chance to go online.

I'll get the forum up ASAP.

[Raiko]

I've created your game forum now. Here's a link

As far as I know I've added every new user from this thread to the validated user group. If any of you can't post in the game threads once Grafster puts them up, then either make a post here, or PM me and I'll fix it straight away.

Enjoy your game.

[Bookman]

I don't seem to be able to post in the new forum otherwise would have posted this over there: any one else have thoughts about location? Charing Cross Road would totally work if we wanted to go there. It is a thriving book community in the 30s and is by no means too declasse for the kind of military punters we would have in the original history of the shop. It has the advantage of being next/near to all the classic locations in terms of West End London and having lots of booksellers next door for contacts, local colour and rivals. I still like Fitzrovia but I will admit myself a massive '84' fan. Various members of Marks and Cohen started their careers at Sotheran's so I share a certain affinity with them. If we go Charing Cross I will try to find an easy way to copy the section of With All Faults that deals with Charing Cross Road and Cecil Court because David Low mentions every bookseller on the Road (it seems) and gives a little detail about their shops which might give people ideas for the game.

[Grafster]

Bookman, took a quick look at the moderate panel for the forum but it doesn't seem to include the ability to add users (or if it has I can't find it). Will reach out to Raiko and see if we can get you added.

[Taavi]

Bookman, you said earlier that Seven Dials was on the edge of Charing Cross road; could we be "right on the border" as it were?

[Raiko]

Bookman, took a quick look at the moderate panel for the forum but it doesn't seem to include the ability to add users (or if it has I can't find it). Will reach out to Raiko and see if we can get you added.

Done!

Sorry I missed Bookman out by accident when I added the other new members to the validated list.

[Bookman]

I'm going to jump across to the OOC thread in the new forum (thanks Raiko) to continue the location discussion.