Response to Durham Cathedral expulsion of Shop Lessee from Durham Cathedral Shop

Cross post from the Wardman Wire

Background (source)

In October 2006 the former SPCK Bookshops and their associated websites were entrusted by SPCK to the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSG), under the control of Messrs Philip and Mark Brewer. Unfortunately shops and staff alike suffered in the transition to new ownership, leading to staff departures, branch closures and uncertainty over opening times for those that remain.

In November 2007 SPCK withdrew SSG’s licence to trade under the SPCK name but throughout 2008 the name was still in use over most of the remaining shops and as of Spring 2009 was still being used in Durham Cathedral Bookshop.

Reports emerging during June 2008 indicated a deepening crisis: SSG filed for bankruptcy in the USA whilst ownership and control of the shops was transferred to a new company — also registered to the Brewers — called ‘ENC Management Company’. The Durham and Chichester shops appear to have been reconstituted as independent trading companies but remain under the Brewers’ personal control.

In July 2008, Mark Brewer attempted to silence reporting on this affair by issuing ‘Cease and Desist’ warnings and threats of legal action against several reporters including Dave Walker, Phil Groom and Clem Jackson of Christian Marketplace magazine. This backfired spectacularly, leading to an explosion of reporting and reposting of Dave Walker’s material across the blogosphere.

On 28th August 2008, however, the bankruptcy filing was dismissed with prejudice by the Texas Bankruptcy Courts and was described by the judge as having been submitted in bad faith: that is, as ‘done for a wrong or improper purpose.’ (The Bookseller, 5 September 2008, Issue No. 5348, p.6). Shortly after this — on 24th September 2008 — the Brewers sold the Exeter shop for £507,000 in violation of a covenant; it is now trading as a jewellery and gift store.

Many of the shop workers who were forced out of their jobs by the Brewers are being supported through Employment Tribunals by Usdaw: these actions are ongoing.

Response to the Specific Situation at Durham Cathedral Bookshop

We welcome the statement today from the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral that notice has been served on the current operators and occupiers of Durham Cathedral Shop requiring them to vacate the premises on 30th April 2010. Bearing in mind that a petiton of almost 400 signatures was submitted to the Dean and Chapter in Autumn 2008, we would have preferred action to have been taken far sooner.

The Durham Cathedral Bookshop has been the flagship shop in the chain, supplying much of the turnover and most of the profit, which has enabled the whole chain to stay afloat for the last three years.

Therefore this action – subject to any legal challenges or actions issued by J Mark and Phil Brewer through their management company – will, we hope, be the beginning of the end of the saga of serious mismanagement of the SPCK Bookshop chain from October 2006 to the present.

We are concerned that the time window until April 2010 will give the Brewers an opportunity to manipulate the business further for their personal benefit.

The Durham Shop continues to use the SPCK logo and materials, permission for which were withdrawn a long time ago, to trade with incorrect Employers’ Liability Insurance, and to ignore obligations in the shop lease to stock a wide range of books. It has been a stain on the reputation of Durham Cathedral.

The records of the attempted Bankruptcy revealed that large sums of money had “gone missing”. We have documented how sums in excess of $700,000 had been removed from the finances of the Durham Cathedral Bookshop under questionable circumstances to other businesses and charities controlled by the Brewers. Other monies from the Bookshop Chain had been spent in unusual ways for a charity, including the maintenance of an aeroplane owned by Phil Brewer, who was responsible for management of the Durham Cathedral Shop.

The mismanagement of the Durham Cathedral Bookshop, and the whole former-SPCK chain, requires proper investigation and resolution.

Matt Wardman, mattwardman AT gmail DOT com
Phil Groom, groom DOT phil AT gmail DOT com

Notes

For more information about the history of the SPCK saga, check these links:

1. Durham Cathedral Shop Finances and questionable Saint Stephen the Great payments
2. Durham Cathedral Shop Adverts and Anagrams: Third Space Books = Crooks Ship A Debt
3. The SPCK/SSG Newsblog: https://spckssg.wordpress.com/
4. My original article back in December 2007, including an interview with Mark Brewer and others.
5. An introduction to the Dave Walker case (legal threats).
6. A recent visit to Durham Cathedral Bookshop.
7. Pursuing the Brewers: Contacts and Facts.
8. Questions for J Mark Brewer: SPCK Bookshops Asset Stripping. Ministry of Truth cross-post.

Tags: Durham Cathedral, Durham Cathedral Bookshop, Michael Sadgrove, Phil Brewer, Saint Stephen the Great, SPCK, SSG

Advertisement

Questions for J Mark Brewer: SPCK Bookshops Asset Stripping. Ministry of Truth cross-post.

Cross-post from the Wardman Wire: Matt Wardman writes:

In the second half of 2008, I devoted a lot of time and space to a campaign to expose the way in which a a pair of Texan Brothers, J Mark and Philip Brewer, had been despoiling and asset stripping the chain of bookshops that used to be owned by the SPCK Christian Charity.

Their activities include bullying, sackings by email, large property transactions that appear to be fraudulent, having an attempt to take a UK-based charity into liquidation in the USA “dismissed with prejudice” and much more. You can read about it in great depth at the SPCK/SSG News Blog. There are also in excess of 30 Employment Tribunal claims – from a previous workforce of only a couple of hundred. The questions in this post only scratch the surface of a 2 year saga.

I been off this campaign for several months, due to family complications as I mentioned previously.

Now, however, Unity from the Ministry of Truth, who has been working on this campaign as well, has discovered that someone has pushed Google into delisting one of his key articles.

Read Unity’s account of the immediate background over at Liberal Conspiracy.

This is the full text of the article excluded from Google, which is a set of questions Unity sent to J Mark Brewer asking him to account for his actions.

I’ve noticed that a few bloggers have taken to sending “I am Dave Walker” e-mails to J Mark Brewer at his office e-mail address. I’m not sure quite how wise a move that is on its own, although his rather santimonius comments in reply are quite amusing.

That said, I’ve taken the liberty of send Brewer an e-mail of my own, as there are a few questions I’d like him to answer:

Dear Mr Brewer,

Having reviewed the documents filed with the US Bankruptcy Court in relation to the chapter 7 application by ‘SSG LLC’?

1. It has been suggested that St Stephen the Great LLC, the company name used in the chapter 11/7 application does not exist as a legal entity – is this true and, if so, why was the application filed in this name, which was also used in the redundancy notices issues to employees of SPCK?

2. It has also been suggested that the actual legal entity to which the application relates is St Stephen the Great Ltd/St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, a UK registered company/charity. Is this the case and, if so, can you explain why you are seeking to liquidate a UK registered entity in a US bankruptcy court?

3. The schedule of creditors indicates that the largest creditor of ‘SSG LLC’ is the Orthodox Church Mission Fund of Houston and that, in addition to payments of around $325,000 to this organisation from the funds of ‘SSG LLC’ since September 07, including $75,000 or so just prior to announcing that it would go into chapter 11, there is still an outstanding balance of $494,000. How is that that a charity running a chain of Christian book shops in the UK can come to owe a US-based private grant making foundation over $800,000?

4. Assuming that the ‘SSG LLC’ named in these papers is the UK registered charity, were the Charity Commission notified that it has incurred debts of this size and have they been notified that you are seeking to liquidate the charity in the US?

5. The schedule of payments made in the 90 days prior to the bankruptcy application shows payments of around $110,000 to your law firm, with an outstanding balance of £56,000. Given that you are a trustee of the charity, did you obtain the assent of the Charity Commission as a trustee of the charity before contracting out legal work to you own law firm or confirm with them that this would not be considered an unlawful trustee benefit?

6. I note that responsibility for those SPCK stores that remain open in the UK has transferred to a company called ENC Shop Management, but for two shops in Durham and Chichester Cathedral which operate as separate entities. In all case, however, you remain a director of these companies having been a director/trustee of SSG/SSGCT. Were any of the assets of SSG/SSGCT transferred to these companies and, if so, when did the transfer take place and what authorisation, if any, did you obtain for the Charity Commission for such a transfer?

Finally,

7. Given that that you issued a ‘cease and desist’ notice to cartoonist Dave Walker on the same day that Randy Walker filed a motion to dismiss this application which note a considerable number of serious discrepancies in the application, is it not reasonable to infer that that the notice sent to Mr Walker was prompted by a desire on your part to prevent him from commenting on and publicising the content of the motion to dismiss?

Regards

Unity
www.ministryoftruth.me.uk

If I get a response from him, you’ll read it here first

ECCR: PUTTING FAITH AND VALUES INTO ACTION, WORKING FOR JUSTICE

Matt Wardman writes:

One of the organisations we have spoken to while pursuing the SPCK/SSG story has been the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility, a research and campaigning organisation started within the Industrial Chaplaincy movement that is now almost 20 years old. I first met them when they were developing a set of Environmental Benchmarks as far back as 1993 in partnership with organisations in the USA and Canada, and applying them to a large British Company. Miles Litvinoff has kindly supplied this article to bring their story up to date.

ECCR typically do long term work in partnership with groups such as Trade Unions and voluntary groups, and (in my view anyway) have demonstrated a great capability to engage in work for corporate responsibility at an institutional level.

The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR) is a coalition of the British and Irish churches and others working for economic justice, environmental stewardship, and corporate and investor responsibility. It undertakes research, advocacy and dialogue with companies and investors and seeks to influence company policy and practice and to raise awareness among the churches, the investor community and the general public. ECCR member organisations control and influence more than £10 billion of invested assets.

ECCR was founded in 1989 following a meeting between British industrial chaplains and visiting Philippine trade unionists concerned about impacts of the operations of UK sugar transnational Tate & Lyle on communities in the Philippines. Responding to local concerns regarding operations of British business overseas has remained central to ECCR’s mission.

Church connections alerted ECCR in the 1990s to social conflict and human rights abuses linked to the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. After initial dialogue with the Shell Group, ECCR brought a ground-breaking shareholder resolution to Shell’s 1996 AGM. There had been few civil society shareholder resolutions in the UK before, and this helped bring about a major response on the part of Shell in of addressing corporate responsibility issues and relations with Niger Delta communities.

ECCR developed links with the Centre for Social and Corporate Responsibility (CSCR), a non-governmental organisation founded in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 2001. Since then we have maintained a joint dialogue with Shell directors in Nigeria and Europe to articulate the rights of people living in the Delta.

In 2006 ECCR brought a second shareholder resolution to Shell’s AGM, focused on the company’s social and environmental performance not only in Nigeria but also in Ireland (the Corrib gas project, County Mayo) and Russia (Sakhalin II oil and gas project). Some 17% of shareholders voted against or abstained from voting with the company on this resolution, a similar proportion as in 1996.

CSCR has provided ECCR with regular reports on the Niger Delta based on its participatory work with communities. This knowledge sharing informs ECCR’s and its members’ engagement with the company and brings considerable credibility to CSCR in Nigeria.

In 2007 ECCR and CSCR met in London with Wim Kok, former Dutch Prime Minister and chair of Shell’s Social Responsibility Committee, to discuss problems arising from poor implementation in Nigeria of its global operational standards. The meeting led to Shell’s Nigeria management participating in a multi‐stakeholder forum with Delta communities co-organised by CSCR. And following concerted pressure involving ECCR and faith-based investors in the USA, CSCR has recently reported successful rehabilitation of neighbourhood water boreholes by Shell Nigeria. Admittedly, many severe oil-industry-related problems remain for Delta communities that ECCR, CSCR and other civil society organisations must still tackle.

Other recent work by ECCR includes researching and reporting on the worldwide operations of mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, co-founding the Working Group on Mining in the Philippines (chaired by former UK development secretary Clare Short MP), pioneering analysis on the global `water footprint’ of British and Irish food and drinks transnationals, and work-in-progress on vulnerable migrant workers in the British and Irish economies.

Shareholder engagement shows growing potential in the movement for greater corporate accountability in relation to human rights and the sustainable development agenda. The approach is in the main non-confrontational, mobilising institutional investors and civil society to press for constructive change on the part of companies. Although reforming corporate policies may be more easily achieved than changing practice on the ground, ECCR’s experience with Shell – and work by other coalitions such as on the cost of AIDS drugs, corporate lobbying, environmental standards and labour conditions in retail supply chains – shows that real change can be achieved.

Miles Litvinoff

ECCR Co-ordinator

Co-ordinator, the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR)
PO Box 500, Oxford OX1 1ZL, UK
tel. +44 (0)20 8965 9682
mobile +44 (0)7984 720103
email: miles.litvinoff@eccr.org.uk
web: www.eccr.org.uk

(ECCR is a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales (No. 2764183) and a Body in Association with Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.)

Helping new people get to grips with the SPCK/SSG Story: Blog Button

Matt Wardman writes:

We are in a slight posting hiatus this week (more from me on Friday), with lots going on in the background.

So, following on from the article a few days ago aiming to help new people get to grips with the SPCK/SSG saga, here is a 125×125 blog button that you can put onto your web page to link back to the article.

<a href="https://spckssg.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/new-to-the-spckssg-story-or-just-feeling-lost/"><img
src="http://www.parishpump.org.uk/campaigns/campaign-125x125-spck-up.gif"
alt="Scrutinising the rundown of the former-SPCK Bookshops"></a>

This code should work on any site, and will include the image automatically.

Ethics of Campaigning

There was a good discussion about whether it is appropriate to highlight real nitty-gritty detail after a question from Rev Ev about Phil’s highlighting of the continued use of the SPCK logo in one element of a window display on the Exeter shop:

Whereas I agree with much that is said on this site about the whole SPCK/SSG scam this is, in my opinion, nit picking.

All this shows is that some lackey has not actually considered what they are putting up in the window… probably some poor sod who doesn’t have a clue about what SPCK stands for, the Christian faith, or what they have got themselves in to.

Lets leave this before it starts to look vindictive.

We all agree that campaigning needs to be vigourous and fact based, without becoming vituperative – and it is useful to take stock from time to time. It is also the case that we have significantly hardened our tone (compared to say August) as we have found out more about all the things that have been happening around the mismanagement of the Saint Stephen the Great organisation.

My own view is that the SSG bookshop chain is such a mess with such extreme mismanagement that the sooner it closes down and is removed from the control of the current management the better, as then there is a greater chance of an equitable division of assets to the different groups (tax man, suppliers, staff etc.) under the framework of English Law before the whole lot are taken out of the backdoor in the dead of night. Then the working examples we have already of locally-supported, independent, well-run bookshops built on the ashes of some ex-SSG bookshops can have a chance to be copied in other places.

My comments are below, and I’d welcome further discussion.

My Reply to Rev Ev

(This is slightly edited)

RevEv

First of all we appreciate the comment; it is the negative feedback that pulls us back to the centre.

Normally we discuss what to report and how to report it offline, but you’ve asked a well-targeted question, and I’d like to offer the courtesy of a detailed and honest answer, and take the opportunity to explain why we really try to sweat the detail, and why it is important to record as much as we can in public.

(This is a long comment, which I’ll turn into an article tomorrow – so you make like to get a cup of tea!)

I agree with you that this is seemingly trivial.

Secondly I’d probably have written it slightly differently (I’m not saying it would be better – Phil and I have complementary styles). I’d probably have emphasised the history of the covenant breaking and mentioned the sign as a detail in passing. On different occasions, Phil has reminded me to tone down my style slightly for this niche compared to my usual political stamping ground.

I’m wondering if we should have a “Sweating the Detail” category or tag to point out this type of post. On my political blog I have a “knockabout” category I use to indicate “tongue in cheek” when I am having an over-the-top “go” at people, and it works well.

HOWEVER…

The whole approach of this campaign has been to “take what was hidden and shout it from the rooftops”, and that is the only approach – apart from formal legal action – that has delivered any results. Dave Walker did it for 18 months, and we are continuing the same basic approach now slightly more on the front-foot. We have repeatedly found that small details let us follow a piece of string which is attached to a piece of rope which has something significant on the end of it, and that the way to follow the trail has been to publish facts and let the network of getting on for 1000 people (e.g., 750 on Facebook) who are interested find relevant information and help build the jigsaw. So we publish lots of detail, even if it seems trivial. Perhaps 90% of the benefit has come from publishing material.

The general attitude of the Brewers to both English and US Law has been to treat compliance as optional, and relatively small details build up a rounded picture of that attitude. That may be needed later in investigations. This may be going to end up with serious legal action. I’ve stopped thinking about “vindictive” when it comes to documenting breaches; I just see that as collecting evidence that may be used in civil or criminal investigations later on. We try to make sure that everything is strong enough that it will be repeatable on oath when that becomes necessary. It may be the trivial detail that will be crucial: in this case concrete proof that the management have not ensured that a Trading Standards instruction is followed thoroughly.

We are also not just working nationally: we are trying to build consciousness in 25 centres so that when this is all over there will be the optimum opportunity to create independent bookshops maintaining the SPCK tradition of critical enqury and dialogue. Publishing small details about individual shops helps with that. It also helps with engaging the local media, who need emphatically local angles; local media are critical to raising local consciousness, and the new bookshops are going to need local communities of interest to support them. In the case of Exeter, a Charity Commission enquiry plus $700k taken out of the overall charity through the back door plus $1.5m of unpaid debts plus a fraudulent bankruptcy might not make the local paper. But those plus ignoring the covenant on an Exeter shop, plus 12 months of Trademark Violation, plus not fully obeying Trading Standards, plus ignoring the covenant on the shop, plus the staff all walking out together (I think), plus other stuff we haven’t published, could make a compelling story about the time the USDAW Tribunal goes to legal action.

Publishing embarrassing details also provides a certain amusement, morale boost and is a maintainer of interest to keep us all engaged on what will be a very long and tedious campaign; humans need it. That was one of the reasons we had such fun with Mark Brewer’s “deep belief in freedom of speech” when he was making threats to shut people up: we needed to create a sense of esprit de corps to build support and interest, and laughing at him helped people forget to be intimidated. The same goes for Phil Brewer’s aeroplane, although that also involves $1500 of misspent charity funds.

Scrutinising tiny detail lets the Brewers know just how closely they are being watched, which may help keep them on their toes and distracting them from nefarious activities or even more vigorous mismanagement/bullying/asset stripping than would have happened otherwise.

** Wrapping Up

I hope that helps explain the approach, even though we’ll both certainly admit we’ve got it a bit wrong at times.

Rgds

Matt

A Further Reply from Rev Ev

Rev Ev replied again:

Matt/Phil

Agreed that identifying small misdemeanours often leads to finding huge mistakes, but I just feel in this case that this is nit picking.

As a regular contributor to other sites watching the actions of particular retailers, I have found that such nitpicking leads to those being watched dismissing what is being said on the whole… saying that I would wholly expect the personages in this dispute to dismiss this, and similar sites, anyway.

Trust me, I do not in any way wish to defend the Brewers. I am more concerned that this dispute does not appear to become vindictive. There is more at stake here than the future, or not, of the former SPCK chain. This dispute could appear to be wholly unchristian if it appears at all to be vindictive and nitpicking, something certain elements of the press would latch on to with glee.

Further Thoughts

We regularly don’t publish material for different reasons, and on a couple of occasions we have pulled or softened articles.

I’d also take the Rev Ev’s point that a campaign around a Christian Bookshop Chain is very easy to attack with the “that’s not very Christian” canard.

Questions to think About

• Where should the lines be drawn on a flagship site such as this one ?
• What content mix should we use?
• Which material should we keep private?
• Should that be different on more satirical sites, such as ASingleblog or Dr Troll.

What do you think? Just to make it more interesting, I’d ask people to avoid “I agree” type comments without a more substantive point.

Church Times Report on Salisbury

Matt Wardman writes:

Yesterday I mentioned that the Church Times was due to publish an article about Mark Clifford’s new bookshop in Salisbury. It also has a good roundup of recent developments in the case of St Stephen the Great. The piece is here and is reproduced below.

A NEW Christian bookshop opens in Salisbury tomorrow. The owner is Mark Clifford, a former manager of Church House Bookshop, who was recently made redundant from the Sarum College Bookshop.

Mr Clifford lost his job in a col­lege cost-cutting exercise, having seen sales rise by ten per cent between September 2007 and June 2008. He had taken over a struggling shop with declining sales, and described his three years there as “tough”. Sales rose despite staff cuts last year, and the shop was said to be picking up a great deal of the business of the former SPCK shop in Salisbury after its new owners, the St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSG), started bankruptcy proceedings in Texas (News, 13 June 2008). The college’s shop is now being run by its librarians.

The SSG shop is still trading in a limited way in Salisbury, managed by a member of the Brewer family. Mark and Phil Brewer are directors of SSG, an Eastern Orthodox charity based in the US. Many UK suppliers will not deal with SSG, but the Salis­bury and Chichester stores are re­ported to have taken in remaindered books from shops closed by the Brewer brothers. Trading Standards have instructed that SPCK signage is to be removed from the shop front at Salisbury.

Sarum College tried twice to sell the college bookshop to SSG, a move Mr Clifford opposed. The trustees gave him the option last summer of leaving or buying the business him­self, or of someone else’s buying it. It was not prepared to negotiate about the rent. After Mr Clifford announ­ced on 11 August last year that he was going to open his own business, he was given an hour to leave, he said.

The new shop will eventually have two trading floors, he says. “Salis­bury needs a city-centre Christian bookshop, and I think we’ve got the knowledge and experience to pro­vide a really good service. The book trade has got excited by it, and I have tremendous support from publishers and suppliers.”

Restricted covenants limit former SPCK shops to bookselling with a broad Christian tradition. The Brewer brothers tried unsuccessfully to sell many of the shops in April 2008. They sold the Exeter shop in September 2008 for £507,000. It is now GemStar Jewellery and Gifts.

Thirty former employees of SPCK Bookshops are taking their cases to an employment tribunal (News, 12 September 2008). Pensions, treat­ment of staff, payment to creditors, responsibility for leases, and legal threats are all issues as yet unre­solved in what one former employee has described as a “trail of damage and despair”. The SPCK mission society is no longer involved with any of the business of the SSG shops.

Here’s hoping for a LOT of media coverage for our campaign in January.

New Christian Bookshop launched in Salisbury by Mark Clifford: Sarum Books

Matt Wardman writes:

Rubies in the dust are becoming more common, and we now have at least five new independent bookshops set up addressing the market niches previously occupied by SPCK (Leicester, Norwich, Lincoln, Cardiff and Salisbury) and often run by ex-SPCK staff.

There are also a number of other independent initiatives that I don’t know enough about to add to this list.

The ex-Manager of the bookshop at Sarum College Mark Clifford is opening a new bookshop in Catherine Street in Salisbury. There is a report in the Church Times tomorrow.

Mark Clifford is chairman of the Booksellers Association’s Christian Booksellers Group.

Sarum Books on Catherine Street, Salisbury

From a previous Christian Marketplace report

“Clifford told Christian Marketplace that he had secured premises in Catherine Street in the city and was hopeful of being able to open by the middle of October. “I am currently finalising all the legal details with the lease etc. and hope to have everything completed in the next couple of weeks.”

The new shop is to be called Sarum Books and Clifford’s aim is to serve the whole community of Salisbury and maintain the supply of a wide range of Christian books across the theological spectrum.

Clifford said he had received a lot of support, particularly from his two main financial backers, and also from a number of Christian publishers and distributors alike. “I’ve also met the suffragan Bishop who has also been very encouraging and supportive of what I am trying to do and I also know that local clergy will prefer to have a shop in the main shopping area.”

In fact the new shop officially opens on January 3rd.

My Comment

These new independent shops in locations where SPCK bookshops previously existed are preserving the “broad” emphasis of the old SPCK chain (and in my opinion are far more strategic for inter-communal relations than certain Prime Ministers carrying Korans under their arms when the media are around), so I’m keen to encourage them.

In Salisbury, I think it is likely to end up with the Sarum College Bookshop as a specialist academic shop, and Sarum Books on Catherine Street catering to a more general market in the City Centre.

The shop which used to be part of the SPCK chain is the one at 51 High Street, Salisbury and this may soon be called “Saint Stephen the Great” or “Third Space Books” or “ENC Ltd” or “SSG LLC” or whatever the name (or alleged name) is this month, after action by Trading Standards to – I am told – make them take down the SPCK name that they lost the right to use around 14 months ago. I think the sign finally came down about a week ago. I encourage you not to use the Saint Stephen the Great bookshop for all the reasons I have posted previously.

Summary

So, in summary:

1. Please take a look at Sarum Books in Catherine Street, Salisbury.
2. Avoid the Saint Stephen the Great Christian Bookshop in the High Street in Salisbury. Remember,  it is run by unethical bullies.
3. The Sarum College bookshop has changed in some ways but is still run by the college. Check this shop out too.

Don’t forget to order your secular books at the Christian bookshop too, if the service fits.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas Gerald the Sheep felt overwhelmed

Last time I posted a Gerald, Phil growled at me in a friendly bookshop-manager fashion (like an adventurous aspidistra), but he’s not doing the blog today, so let’s play.

Gronda!, Gronda!

I feel like that when I count how many hares are running at any one time in this SPCK saga.

More Brewerlogues later.

Credit: Ben Gallagher.

[Update – See Peter Kirk’s comment below]

Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage: Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust lead by J Mark Brewer

Just a little reminder of what they said when they started …

The Twelve Days of Gerald the Sheep Day Two: Cartoon by Ben Gallagher

Typically, this was the only time Gerald completed a Rubik’s Cube

Cartoon: Ben Gallagher