Episode 8 | How do you reinvent a 50-year-old bookshop? Cathy Hayward, Kemptown Bookshop (Brighton)
Bookshop StoriesShow Notes
What do you do when you take over a bookshop that has already survived for half a century? Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2026. It opened in 1976 and, remarkably, Cathy Hayward is only the third owner in its history. When Cathy bought the independent bookshop in 2022, she inherited much more than shelves full of books: there were established customers, experienced staff, decades of history and a particular idea of what Kemptown Bookshop was. Cathy had never worked as a bookseller. A former business journalist and founder of a PR agency, she was already pursuing another long-held ambition to become a novelist when she discovered that one of her local bookshops was for sale. She wasn't looking to buy one, didn't have the money to buy it and admits that, once she'd fallen in love with the idea, she probably didn't ask enough questions before signing on the dotted line. Four years later, Cathy has gradually reshaped Kemptown Bookshop to reflect both the neighbourhood it serves and her own ideas about what an independent bookshop can be. In this episode of Bookshop Stories, we talk about the delicate balance between preserving the character of a much-loved local business and recognising when it needs to change. Cathy explains how she reconsidered the books on the shelves, expanded the shop's LGBTQ+ literature and selection from independent publishers, introduced a café and created a programme of events designed to give people more reasons to spend time there. That includes one of the more unusual bookshop events I've encountered during this series: Kemptown Bookshop's 5am Writing Club. What began as an experiment on the summer solstice in 2023 has become a monthly gathering, with writers sometimes queuing outside before five in the morning before settling down to write together as Brighton wakes up around them. Cathy is also wonderfully candid about the less romantic side of buying an existing bookshop: negotiating a commercial lease when you don't really know what you're doing, choosing the wrong professional advisers, discovering problems with VAT and cashflow, dealing with rising employment costs, and learning why enthusiasm for owning a beautiful bookshop still has to be accompanied by a viable business model. We also talk about Cathy's unusual working life and how she has gradually managed to make books the thread connecting almost everything she does. Alongside owning Kemptown Bookshop, she is a published novelist, teaches creative writing and continues to write her own fiction — often getting up at 5am to produce her first thousand words before the working day begins. And, as Kemptown Bookshop reaches its 50th birthday, Cathy reflects on what it means to be the temporary guardian of a business that existed long before she arrived and which she hopes will continue long after she eventually leaves.
Bookshop Stories goes behind the shelves of independent bookshops to meet the people who run them and explore the realities of bookselling, running a small business and keeping independent bookshops alive. Follow us on Instagram for photographs and stories from each shop, and subscribe to the Bookshop Stories Substack for the articles accompanying every episode. You can also browse books recommended by guests throughout the series at our Bookshop.org storefront. Buying through the storefront supports independent bookshops, while also providing a small commission that helps support Bookshop Stories.
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