Keith Leonard was a co-founder of Mushroom Bookshop, Nottingham's alternative and radical bookshop (which served hippies, activists and other malcontents between 1972-2000). He sadly died at the QMC on August 7th, from heart problems, after years of living with disability.
Keith was born in Kent and studied maths at Cambridge. But in 1972, after a spell as a landscape gardener and suitably bearded and longhaired, he set up Mushroom with his then partner.
The first Mushroom premises were at 261 Arkwright Street, near Trent Bridge, and books bought there could always be recognised by their distinctive aroma of joss sticks and incense, which were also sold, alongside craft items, badges and hippy paraphernalia. The first book sold was by Spike Milligan, and it was many months before turnover reached £100 per week. But the shop served a large community and, supported by the founders supplementing it with part time work, managed to expand. Keith had no training or previous experience as a bookseller, but in those days it was possible to ask advice and learn as you went along.
When the Meadows were redeveloped, Mushroom moved to Heathcote Street in the Lace Market - first to a small shop which had previously sold wool and baby clothes, and then over the road to number 10. In 1979, on learning of a hoped-for pregnancy, Keith and his partner expanded the Mushroom collective to around five people. Sadly, his first baby only lived for two days, but a year later Keith's daughter Anna was born, bringing much joy.
In those pre-internet days, Nottingham's radical bookshop played a large role in Nottingham's activist community. Literature sold helped to set the agenda of the day, and notices and leaflets in the shop helped like-minded people to come together. Mushroom stocked a large range of radical papers and magazines as well as books, and some groups, such as previous Nottingham Anarchist groups, were set up as a result of communications through the shop. Mushroom played a large part in the anti-nuclear movement, and published some pamphlets. It acted as a forum for the spreading of ideas. It also suffered unwanted attention from both fascists and police.
Keith's varied interests included music, walking, poetry (which he also wrote), photography and, of course, books. He loved the Peak District, but this love was overtaken when he discovered the Lake District. Keith suffered a stroke unexpectedly in 1998, and wasn't able to work after that. He lived in Aspley and Basford until his death.
His cremation will take place on August 19th.
The first Mushroom premises were at 261 Arkwright Street, near Trent Bridge, and books bought there could always be recognised by their distinctive aroma of joss sticks and incense, which were also sold, alongside craft items, badges and hippy paraphernalia. The first book sold was by Spike Milligan, and it was many months before turnover reached £100 per week. But the shop served a large community and, supported by the founders supplementing it with part time work, managed to expand. Keith had no training or previous experience as a bookseller, but in those days it was possible to ask advice and learn as you went along.
When the Meadows were redeveloped, Mushroom moved to Heathcote Street in the Lace Market - first to a small shop which had previously sold wool and baby clothes, and then over the road to number 10. In 1979, on learning of a hoped-for pregnancy, Keith and his partner expanded the Mushroom collective to around five people. Sadly, his first baby only lived for two days, but a year later Keith's daughter Anna was born, bringing much joy.
In those pre-internet days, Nottingham's radical bookshop played a large role in Nottingham's activist community. Literature sold helped to set the agenda of the day, and notices and leaflets in the shop helped like-minded people to come together. Mushroom stocked a large range of radical papers and magazines as well as books, and some groups, such as previous Nottingham Anarchist groups, were set up as a result of communications through the shop. Mushroom played a large part in the anti-nuclear movement, and published some pamphlets. It acted as a forum for the spreading of ideas. It also suffered unwanted attention from both fascists and police.
Keith's varied interests included music, walking, poetry (which he also wrote), photography and, of course, books. He loved the Peak District, but this love was overtaken when he discovered the Lake District. Keith suffered a stroke unexpectedly in 1998, and wasn't able to work after that. He lived in Aspley and Basford until his death.
His cremation will take place on August 19th.
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Mushroom in the meadows remembered
12.08.2009 22:47
It was 261 Arkwright Street, between Sign Design sign painters and a doctors' surgery (in a house, set back a foot or two from the line of shops). We lived upstairs, and usually had various friends living with us too. It opened September 1972.
We saw the little bridge going over the canal from London Road to Meadow Lane out of our back upstairs window (the humpbacked bridge was still there, last time I looked), and we faced onto Arkwright St just south of the tiny road that joined Arkwright St & London Rd (I think called Ryehill St, with a pub called the Greyhound(then)).
We paid £5 a week (I think it was a week, not a month) rent to the council for the whole building - front shop; back shop; cellar with low ceiling and previous occupants' rubbish; back bathroom with large unplumbed-in bath we used to store cardboard boxes; outside yard with toilet; first floor kitchen with running cold water, gas, and mice; first floor living room; two second floor bedrooms. A local dog I called Prodnose was very very dirty, and used to sleep on the piles of free clothes. Someone once thought he was an Afghan coat and tried to take him away. We had to accept the lease without looking at it first, but we were happy with what we found. There was an old kitchen range behind boarding in the back shop fireplace, but it wasn't usable. We heated with coal and a small paraffin fire. Sometimes I was so cold I couldn't hold a pen. In the back shop we had mattresses for people to sit on and drink tea; and the free corner; and we sold craft type items like macrame and home-made jewellery etc and joss sticks (10p a packet) which made all our books smell familiar. Once the police accused us of harbouring a runaway schoolchild and said we obviously did, because look - there were the mattresses she slept on. Once the police were called when our gas meter was robbed, and they locked themselves out of their panda car. We decorated the ceiling of the back shop with crepe paper, and one of the walls kept crumbling into sand (but otherwise the structure of the building was sound.) I think the walls of that room were painted purple, if I remember right.
A friend who worked in the Fine Fare shop over the road used to roll up for us. We ate our meals at the shop desk in the shop window during opening times. Unpaid invoices and other paperwork were shoved into the shop window area.
Before us, it was a jewellery shop, and some of the furnishings were left behind. A friend took the glass fittings for his allotment. A display case became a bookcase upstairs. Just behind the cellar door was a gem polishing belt that rumbled and thundered when switched on, and shook the whole building. The on-switch for it was just where you'd expect the light switch to be, and caught out many a meter reader.
I supplemented our income by cleaning at Turney Brothers leather factory offices, until I not only got sacked, but lost the company the contract - I used to bring friends along, and clean swirly patterns on the stained walls above the radiators. I also taught a bit of German privately, and Keith tutored maths at a private cramming place. & I had other cleaning jobs in West Bridgford.
We set up with £600 that we amassed by Keith saving from his previous job as a landscape gardner, and my mum gave me some money from her pension. Publishers lent shelves, and friends made some too. Other radical bookshops (particularly Compendium in London & Orwell Books in Ipswich) gave us advice.
When we moved the shop to Heathcote St in mid 70s, we carried on living upstairs in Arkwright St for a year or so, til 1976.
Chris
Memories
13.08.2009 00:58
You could run into friends very easily there, it was a hub of alternative activity. It felt like part of a little alternative zone with Ice Nine, Hiziki's and a few other places. I remember when the neo-Nazi attack happened, altho I wasn't around to see it. It was a great shame when the shop closed down. I still have a Mushroom Bookshop T-shirt I bought at the till, which I've hardly worn. I wore it again recently and someone commented "Mushroom Bookshop! You don't hear about that much these days. It was irreplaceable, since it closed there's been nowhere that has served the same purpose."
Actually it still feels to me as if it's still there, because there's kind of a spirit of the place that lives in everyone who knew it and loved it. I'm sure I remember a long grey-haired bearded man at the till, offering to order me something they didn't have on the shelves... that would be Keith then would it? :)
Keith Leonard and Mushroom Bookshop RIP
Mat McVeagh
e-mail:
matmcv@googlemail.com
Thanks, Keith
13.08.2009 06:19
John
Nottingham Evening Post, February 1999
13.08.2009 09:07
Keith Leonard told a tribunal how he felt he had been "stabbed in the back" after he was dismissed from the city centre company he co-founded 27 years ago.
He was dismissed from Mushroom Bookshop, Heathcote Street, Hockley, while he was in the Queen's Medical Centre last August, a Nottingham Employment Tribunal heard.
The tribunal panel yesterday ruled that Mr Leonard, who is now in a wheelchair and has lost some use of his left arm, had been unfairly dismissed.
They said the decision to sack Mr Leonard - made by the shop's four worker-directors - had been made without discussion with him and without warning.
Mr Leonard, 50, co-founded the independent bookshop in 1972. It is now run as a workers' co-operative.
Mr Leonard, who suffered a stroke in April last year, was told of the decision by co-director Oliver Bolam at a meeting held in the hospital in front of friend Judith Martin and a social worker.
Mrs Martin said: "When Keith was told he was dismissed he was in shock and in tears for the rest of the meeting."
Mr Bolam told the tribunal the directors felt that Mr Leonard would not be fit to continue working at the shop after they studied a report by his hospital consultant.
Conclusion
He said: "We came to the conclusion he would be unable to perform the tasks required."
He added the decision was made in the light of the shop making losses over the last two years and because of the approaching Christmas period.
Mr Bolam said the decision had not been taken lightly. "We weren't happy about the conclusion we had to reach," he added.
But Mr Leonard said the letter had been misinterpreted and he would have been able to carry out enough tasks to carry on working there.
He said: "I felt I had been stabbed in the back - this was a fundamental breach of trust."
The shop also offered to re-instate Mr Leonard in November, which he refused on the grounds that trust between them could not be restored.
Tribunal chairman Stephen Keevash said: "We are concerned that this respondent did not give an indication to the applicant that dismissal was an option.
"It seemed to have come very quickly."
Speaking after the case, Mr Leonard said he was very pleased at the decision.
He added: "But I am saddened that my years of involvement with Mushroom Bookshop should end this way."
Caroline
RIP Keith
15.08.2009 23:38
Nick B.
Funeral details
18.08.2009 06:43
4pm
Wilford Hill Crematorium
Chris