Staff – Dave Gilchrist, Ursla Hawthorn, Noel Halifax, Josh Largent, Katy Elligott and Fergus Nicol – pose outside Bookmarks, the socialist bookshop

THEY have spent 50 years inspiring thoughts, changing minds, underlining arguments and spreading progressive politics.

The staff at Bookmarks have also fought off far-right Trump supporters, tackled the demise of the Net Book Agreement, and battled against tax-dodging multinational booksellers.

This week the independent store in Bloomsbury marks its 50th anniversary.

Co-founder Fergus Nicol was a member of the International Socialists, the political movement behind Bookmarks, and recalls an adage from his father that helped kickstart it: “If you go into someone’s house you can guess if they are a Communist Party member by the numbers of books on their shelves. They are interested in what the world is doing. My idea was to help the IS be in that position. I wanted to go into IS members’ homes and see a library of books worth reading.”

Fergus recalls how in the 1960s, the movement faced a thorny communication problem.

“A large part of the membership was in London, but there were members in Liverpool, Manchester, elsewhere,” he says. “They found it difficult to get hold of information – things like the Communist Manifesto, pamphlets, other books.”

It was 1967 and Fergus was given £30 to set up a mail order system.

The different sects on the left meant the road to either parliamentary or revolutionary Socialism was far from clear. In 1968, the IS newspaper called The Labour Worker became the Socialist Worker with a strapline “The Tuppenny Paper that fights for you”.

From here, the IS grew rapidly. The increase in membership meant Fergus could start to look for a shop. An empty lock-up in Finsbury Park was sourced and a radical institution was born.

As well as shelves to browse, sales were supplemented by a book club.

“We made sure they were relatively cheap, and full of Socialist classics, including fiction. The Left Book Club before the war was our model,” adds Fergus.

“They were titles you wouldn’t find in a general book store.”

Raising funds outside the shop in the 1980s for the striking miners

Former manager Simon Hester looked after the shop between 1992 and 1998. He oversaw the move from Finsbury Park to Bloomsbury.

“Three things happened in the early 1990s: firstly, it was politically volatile. The poll tax had happened, Thatcher had gone, and we were in the dog days of the Tory government,” he says.

“In 1992, there was the Black Wednesday crash and a recession. There were big protest movements.”

Added to this was the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the effect this had on the left in Europe.

“The fall of the USSR in 1989 and 1989 had left some of the left in despair. Bookmarks was associated with the SWP, who felt the Soviet Union was state capitalism and not our friend – it meant it was not so demoralising,” he states.

While the recession focused minds on the state of the world, it did hit potential customers pockets.

“Economically, things were not good,” says Simon.

“Rising taxes had a dramatic effect on booksellers, record shops, cinemas – independents were failing all over.”

Added to this, the dismantling of the Net Book Agreement, which stopped undercutting, collapsed. It meant indies could no longer entice customers in for bestsellers and then sell them a second book they did not know they wanted.

“Almost every town had an independent store,” he says. “Many closed around that time.”

Staff decided to concentrate on what they did best.

“We took a decision politically and financially that running a general shop was not feasible,” he said. “We pushed the idea were a Socialist bookshop.”

An important part was running stalls at trade union events, meetings and demonstrations.

In 1993, the country’s best known left-wing book shop, Colletts, closed its Charing Cross Road HQ after 70 years. It gave Bookmarks an opening. The TUC wanted a bookshop that could stock their publications – and Bookmarks wanted a central address. Together, they found the Bloomsbury shop where Bookmarks remains trading today.

Volunteers built shelves, packed books, painted and decorated.

Tony Benn signing copies at Bookmarks in 2003

“It was done on a shoestring,” says Simon.

The shop could now host book launches and they have played host to some of the most prominent political thinkers of the period, and have been close to history makers.

In 1996, Jeremy Corbyn had arranged for Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, to launch a book at the House of Commons. It caused a furore – Adams was still subject to censorship rules – so the plan changed.

“I said immediately we would do it,” recalls Simon.

It meant when Adams had books later to promote, he would always come to Bookmarks – and led to the shop having a role on a historic day.

“The day Adams, Martin McGuinness and other Sinn Fein leaders were going to meet Tony Blair at Downing Street and sign the Good Friday Agreement, they came to Bookmarks first,” recalls Simon.

“Gerry did a book signing and then went to Downing Street. Sinn Fein leadership were browsing our book shelves. The shop was packed and there was a sense of jubilation, the war was finally over.”

Dave Gilchrist started at Bookmarks in 2007 and watched the shop’s influence widen. Social justice movements across Europe invited them to events in Geneva, Genoa, Paris and elsewhere.The political temperature always translates into sales.

In recent years, the climate crisis has attracted book buyers. Dave said: “The rise of environmentalism is reflected by the titles customers are asking for, people looking for ideas around climate crisis, and social justice.”

The shop received a boost when Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015.

“A quirk of that was we had younger people flocking here,” he says.

“We sold many of the Walter Citrine guide to chairing meetings – and lots on the history of the Labour Party.”

Bookmarks relies on hard work and loyal customers – but it has always been worthwhile, adds Simon.

“People are blown away by the scale,” says Dave.

“We have sections others do not carry or have in such a concentrated way. It was a hugely stimulating place to work.”

• Bookmarks is at 1 Bloomsbury Street, WC1B 3QE, 0207 637 1848, https://bookmarksbookshop.co.uk