Malcolm's volunteering story

“I’m the assistant manager at the Demelza bookshop at Hythe, but I was a volunteer first, in the Demelza charity shop that my wife Lucy manages. I always say that initially I was conscripted rather than volunteered – I had no say in the matter! If you speak to anyone in volunteer services, it’s like a family, and if you are family, you will be volunteering – end of. I started out just helping to put a few shelves up and doing the odd bit of cover, and then when the new bookshop was getting ready to open, I helped with the building preparation – putting up more shelves! Then I started volunteering in the bookshop itself. I really liked the environment and working with books, as opposed to some of the strange things you can get donated to the charity shop! When the pandemic started I was furloughed, so I did more and more hours. I was also doing ambulance driving for end of life and patient transfers, which I still do as bank shifts, so that’s very different. The bookshop is lovely, it’s sedate – we’re busy but it’s a calm environment, which makes it the perfect balance with my ambulance driving, which can be very heavy.

One of the biggest benefits of volunteering is the social interaction – I spent my previous career as a salesman, so I always had that social interaction, and I still love trying to upsell! There’s a waiting list for volunteering in the bookshop and I think that’s because of that calm environment, the pace and how nice it is to work here. And getting to deal with all kinds of books – we’ve had a few first editions come through and got good money for them! I love finding things to put in the windows that will catch people’s eye as they walk past. The donations we get go from the sublime to the ridiculous – you might get someone dropping off a few paperbacks and the next person will bring in five boxes full of books! We are lucky to get some really lovely books. And we’re able to offer them to customers at more accessible prices, when people don’t have much money.

Working with the bookshop manager, Paul, was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go for the job and I’m getting to introduce some selling tactics from my sales background. Together, we’re tweaking the prices a little bit and moving things around in the shop to highlight certain books more.

If you’re thinking about volunteering for Demelza, don’t think about it - just do it! I’ve seen so many people benefit from volunteering – either from getting some social interaction or a new point of view. Some volunteers might have had a really complicated history or issues with mental health, and you can just see them grow and grow. There’s so much more to volunteering – it’s not just what you give, it’s what you get out of it too.”