'So shocked': customer wins bookshop in raffle

The UK’s newest independent bookseller is gearing up to open his doors – after winning a bookshop in a raffle.

The unusual prize was dreamed up by Paul Morris, who opened Bookends in Cardigan four years ago. The shop is profitable and would have made an estimated £30,000 in a sale, but Morris said he wanted to give someone else the chance to realise their dream of running a bookshop. Over the last three months, anyone who spent more than £20 was eligible to be entered into a raffle to win it.

The name of the winner, Ceisjan Van Heerden, who is from the Netherlands, was drawn out of a hat containing 59 others at a ceremony last week, as Abba’s The Winner Takes It All played to a crowd.

Morris, who worked in the book industry for years before he opened his own shop, told the Guardian that he had chosen to take early retirement at 52 after his osteoarthritis worsened.

“I thought about selling it, but I thought instead, let’s give someone an opportunity in life which they might not otherwise have had. The principle was to make sure the shop continues in good hands,” he said. “[Ceisjan] is a regular customer and I’m really pleased it was him – he wants to run it. You can make a very good living from it – far too many bookshops have disappeared over the years.”

Van Heerden wasn’t at the prize draw, said Morris. “So I left him a message, and, when he phoned back, he said he’d had to have a sit down and a cup of coffee.”

Van Heerden told the Tivyside Advertiser that he was “so shocked” when he heard he had won. “I love books and read a lot and just happened to be in the shop when a TV crew was making a film about Paul’s decision to raffle it off and I bought a ticket,” said Van Heerden.

He officially takes over the shop on 5 November and said he is planning to run it with a friend from Iceland, who is now moving to west Wales. Although the pair have been friends online for nine years, they have yet to meet face to face. “It might sound strange, but we are sure we can make it work. It is just an amazing opportunity,” he said.

Morris said that a number of his customers had said that they had always fancied running a bookshop. He got into the business after stumbling across a retired bookseller selling around 18,000 books on eBay. “I thought it sounded fantastic. He’d moved the contents of his bookshop into his house, and wanted everything to go to the same person. We did a deal, and a friend and I drove a lorry to Great Yarmouth to collect them all.”

If it wasn’t for his osteoarthritis, said Morris, he would still be running Bookends. “I always wanted to have a bookshop, but I’ve had my stint, and now it’s time for someone else to take over,” he said.