SAMURAI BOOKS AND SAUSAGE BUTTIES

Well Storm Dennis is due at noon, Ciara's little brother. The weatherman advises battening down the hatches but I'm not going out anyway. I've got my traditional half-term cold and feel like a triffid's sat on my face.

Armed with Netflix and paracetamol I'll spend the day with the mutt on the sofa. I will have to go out later as I've sold 28 paperbacks. It seemed like a good idea at the time - the job lot syndrome - but wrapping them up and lugging them to the Hermes facility with Dennis at my shoulder isn't so appealing now. Still we're nowhere near a river and really feel sorry for anyone that is as they seem to flood terribly during storms these days.

I've been selling second hand books for years and I've always enjoyed it. Finding a vintage book I like is just like finding a vintage toy or game. It always gives me a thrill and because most Charity shops stock books there's a good chance something will turn up during an afternoon's browsing.

I think the first books I ever sold were some of my spares when I was a youngster, maybe 10 or 11. These will have been spare TV tie-ins like Kung Fu and duplicate comics like Yang, all pretty much martial arts based since that was my teenage obsession at the time. I still have my own copy of Yang but I've had to replace the Kung Fu novels. Who knows where they all went unless I sold them them as a job lot in a fit of literary hari kiri!

Swaps were tops back then too. This was before Noel Edmunds' Multi-Coloured Swap Shop was on TV [remember that?]. The best paper swaps I got were a set of Chinese Bruce Lee magazines off a mate, Masey. He'd got them from his Chinese buddy Sun Hi, who lived above the local Chinese Takeaway. I adored those magazines and still have them, some of a few prized possessions I still have from a fabulous time 50 years ago. Not sure what I swapped. Could have been an Elvis LP.

I lent books as well back then. I suppose we all did. I got most books back but one particularly important set of hardbacks were never returned. These were the Japanese language Nippon-To, a classic reference book of Japanese Swordmaking and The Samurai Sword, an English language book on the same subject. I don't know why I lent them out - I adored those books, especially Nippon-To - but I think my close friend George asked me to lend them to his mate who worked at a sandwich shop and had recently joined an Aikido class. Anyways, I never got them back and with a family tragedy round the corner I ended up moving with my Dad. Boom!

Luckily as we grow older we earn enough to re-unite ourselves with old books and toys, as we so often enjoy talking about on Moonbase, so it was a huge thrill to be able to buy Nippon To and The Samurai Sword once more about 15 years ago. The power of the Net! Holding Nippon To again brought a few tears to my eyes I can tell you as it really was symbolic of a lost time, my own precious youth and my late great parents, who'd bought me the books in the forst place one Christmas. They now sit proudly at the centre of the Martial Arts section of my 'library' - a large bookcase!

And so to today, I still need to wrap those 28 paperbacks. Time for a coffee and a sausage butty first I think!

Do you collect, buy, sell or swap books readers?