I’ve already mentioned Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, in one post today – after I namedropped it in a comment to The Northern Echo – and last week it was a real pleasure to attend the official launch event of Two Tales, the charity’s new Durham pop-up.
As I reported a couple of months ago, back in June last year I visited Seven Stories, met with “Creative Lead in Residence” Richard O’Neill, and hinted in my LinkedIn post at the time about “opportunities for collaboration” – and, 11 months later, Two Tales is the result!
Matchmaking
A week after our meeting I introduced Richard to James Taylor and the team at Durham’s Prince Bishops Place shopping centre, at which point my Retail Cupid matchmaking work was largely done.
From there, a whole range of other stakeholders – including Richard, James, Seven Stories’ CEO Wendy Elliott and many people at Durham County Council, among others – have worked together, with passion and determination, to make Two Tales happen.
Delightful
And what a delightful initiative it is!
Two Tales builds on and adds to Durham’s growing community of specialist bookshops, including BookWyrm, whose owners Chris and Miles (pictured with me above) organise the existing Durham Children’s Book Festival, which takes place again this August.
Through my Durham work, I was able to provide mentoring support to Chris and Miles when their bookshop was just a dream back in 2022, and it has been wonderful to see their business, their confidence, and their stature in the Durham community grow.
And North East Mayor Kim McGuinness was there too, celebrating the importance of books in giving children the skills and creativity they need to thrive, and their role in helping tackle the region’s child poverty that was such an important theme in our fireside chat at Durham Business Group on Tuesday last week.
Opportunity
Logistics and the cost of coach hire these days makes it hard for Durham schools to take their pupils to Seven Stories in Newcastle, but this new space – with 40 schools already booked in for visits – brings delight and opportunity direct to them.
And though a pop-up for now, all the parties involved are dedicated to exploring longer-term options if Two Tales is, as seems likely, a great success.
So, in short, this one pop-up encapsulates much of the best of the modern high street: a vibrant and welcoming space that combines retail, coffee and events, founded on fantastic partnership working, and that celebrates our ability to keep reinventing city centres in order to attract the widest possible audiences, including young people.
You really can’t ask for more than that.
