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Ian Norrie, a true bookman |
Bookseller-publisher who reigned on Hill
Champion of literature whose shop was at centre of cultural life dies aged 82
IAN Norrie, legendary independent bookseller and publishing guru, who ran the High Hill Bookshop in Hampstead for 32 years, died on Saturday at the North London Hospice. He was 82.
He championed literature as much as he backed such causes as the Hampstead Theatre and Burgh House during his years at the High Hill, once a pivotal place for celebrity book launch parties and gossip in Hampstead High Street.
In his publishing career he produced the evocative Book of Hampstead and The Heathside Book of Hampstead and Highgate, as well as local guides and Hampstead: London Hill Town.
His reign as an iconoclastic, independent bookseller ended in 1988. From then on he indulged in his passions for the theatre, cricket, art galleries, travel, French wine and his membership of the Garrick Club, where his two failed attempts to open its doors to women members made him a target for scorn and admiration.
His sardonic wit – he once produced a copy of Racine’s Andromaque to Jonathan Miller with the comment, “I suppose that’s the next classic you’re going to mess about with!” – protected him but sometimes made him a painful friend.
But all those who knew him enjoyed his rancour. “Ian saw everything in black and white – there was no grey,” says one lunch companion. Indeed, Ian claimed, in his recently published memoirs, that he inherited his impatience and scepticism from his Scottish father, a retail pharmacist. And his parents’ love of books too.
Born in Kent, he avoided his parents’ desire to join the civil service and began life as an unpaid trainee reporter on the Eastbourne Gazette and Herald. “Being a newspaper reporter brought out the worst in me,” he admitted. “I was a cocky 17-year-old, an embryo angry young man with a streak of idealism, a callow, would-be intellectual with little application for study in depth.”
After service in the RAF, he arrived in London in 1949 and worked in three bookshops, including Foyles, before coming to Hampstead and initially managing the High Hill, which, to his amazement, had been bought as a tax loss by Christina Foyle. He bought it in 1964 and fulfilled his ambition to be among the finest independent booksellers in Britain.
His interests didn’t end there. He was a true bookman who became chairman of the Society of Bookmen, an influence at the National Book League and the author of an updated issue of Mumby’s, the industry’s classic history, a special correspondent for The Bookseller and a regular reviewer for me at the Ham & High.
His remarkable story is to be read in The Business of Lunch: A Bookman’s Life and Travels, published last March.
Ian, a widower following the death of his beloved wife, Mavis, leaves two daughters. The funeral is on Thursday at Golders Green Crematorium. |
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