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Sarah Harvey remembers IVY
I started working at Ivy's bookshop in 1965-I was fifteen and the store was a year old. My qualifications were minimal; I knew how to operate a cash register and I loved books. Turns out that my cash register experience was far less use than my love of books, since Ivy's didn't have a cash register, just a cash drawer.
The store's first location was on Wilmot Place, a side street in the quiet (some might say quaint) district of Oak Bay. Heated by a single smelly oil heater, the store featured poetry, drama and fiction, as well as a children's section (with a weird low table and attached chairs that children hated). There was also a larger, adult-sized table where tea was served every afternoon to anyone who was in the store.
Making tea was one of my first responsibilities, and it was a strict process, taught to me by Ivy's sister, Ada, the store's bookkeeper and main Ivy-wrangler.
Another of my duties was gift-wrapping and I still remember Ada teaching me to make a very specific kind of bow (no curly ribbon-that was cheating).
Ada was also VERY particular about how the bills were placed in the cash drawer-the Queen's heads all had to face in the same direction-and I was always getting in trouble for forgetting that important rule (and for getting my long hair caught in the cash drawer).
Between 5 and 6 pm, Victoria's literati dropped by regularly to drink lousy wine and discuss great literature.
The centre of all this activity was the brilliant, hard-working and eccentric Ivy Mickelson, who was reputed to have trained as a bookseller in New York City. Ivy was short-ish and round-ish with a head of unruly curls and a slash of magenta lipstick, which she famously applied without a mirror. She had two favourite expressions. The first was, "Oh, really!"; said, eyes wide, in response to just about anything, from the trivial ("We're out of digestives";) to the serious ("I'm pregnant";). She also proclaimed "Life is real! Life is earnest!"; almost every day. It was years before I found out the next line of the poem is "And the grave is not its goal,"; but it's an expression I still use today.
Ivy-the-Indefatigable worked incredibly hard to build up the store's reputation as the place in Victoria for Literature with a capital L. She refused to stock mass-market paperbacks (although she would pick them up at the local wholesaler if you asked nicely) but she had firm views on what constituted literature, and what did not. Woe betide the customer who challenged Ivy's opinion on such matters.
Sarah Harvey is an editor for Orca Books, as well as an author and the former manager of the University of Victoria bookstore. One of her earliest jobs was at Ivy's Bookshop.
The store's first location was on Wilmot Place, a side street in the quiet (some might say quaint) district of Oak Bay. Heated by a single smelly oil heater, the store featured poetry, drama and fiction, as well as a children's section (with a weird low table and attached chairs that children hated). There was also a larger, adult-sized table where tea was served every afternoon to anyone who was in the store.
Making tea was one of my first responsibilities, and it was a strict process, taught to me by Ivy's sister, Ada, the store's bookkeeper and main Ivy-wrangler.
Another of my duties was gift-wrapping and I still remember Ada teaching me to make a very specific kind of bow (no curly ribbon-that was cheating).
Ada was also VERY particular about how the bills were placed in the cash drawer-the Queen's heads all had to face in the same direction-and I was always getting in trouble for forgetting that important rule (and for getting my long hair caught in the cash drawer).
Between 5 and 6 pm, Victoria's literati dropped by regularly to drink lousy wine and discuss great literature.
The centre of all this activity was the brilliant, hard-working and eccentric Ivy Mickelson, who was reputed to have trained as a bookseller in New York City. Ivy was short-ish and round-ish with a head of unruly curls and a slash of magenta lipstick, which she famously applied without a mirror. She had two favourite expressions. The first was, "Oh, really!"; said, eyes wide, in response to just about anything, from the trivial ("We're out of digestives";) to the serious ("I'm pregnant";). She also proclaimed "Life is real! Life is earnest!"; almost every day. It was years before I found out the next line of the poem is "And the grave is not its goal,"; but it's an expression I still use today.
Ivy-the-Indefatigable worked incredibly hard to build up the store's reputation as the place in Victoria for Literature with a capital L. She refused to stock mass-market paperbacks (although she would pick them up at the local wholesaler if you asked nicely) but she had firm views on what constituted literature, and what did not. Woe betide the customer who challenged Ivy's opinion on such matters.
Sarah Harvey is an editor for Orca Books, as well as an author and the former manager of the University of Victoria bookstore. One of her earliest jobs was at Ivy's Bookshop.
Submitted on August 26, 2014 in By David.
