Antique books and forgotten stories to bring tales of the past, present and future at book fair

This month is to see the return of the Harrogate Premier antiquarian book fair, to be held March 15 and 16 at the Pavilions of Harrogate on the Great Yorkshire Showground.

And with this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA), a special guest is invited for the course of the two days.

Journalist Christa Ackroyd, a familiar face to many from her days with Look North and YTV, is now a committee member for the Bronte Birthplace which is campaigning to restore the terraced house in Thornton, Bradford, where the three literary sisters and their brother Branwell were born.

The goal is to turn this building, birthplace of some of Britain's best loved literary giants, into a social and educational space, inspiring future generations to believe and achieve as the famous sisters once did.

To Richard Hodgson, leader of the bookfair team, these ambitions serve as a "particularly pertinent" link to the past, sharing a message of inspiration for disadvantaged youngsters.

"I'm so pleased to have Christa involved," he said. "It knits together to bring the past to the present. Society and its moral code, if you wish, relies on good quality teaching and education and access to knowledge.

"If we don't understand the past, in the present, then we can't know what the future has to be found. It all counts.

"It's an amazing opportunity for children to learn and to have faith in their ability to move forward in life."

The bookfair will feature an estimated 8,000 antiquarian and second-hand books, both fiction and non-fiction and covering an incredible span of subjects.

This is an event which began half a century ago with booksellers in the provinces, banding together to sell in the city of London, and has grown to incorporate annual events nationwide. There has been a fair each year in Harrogate since the 1970s.

Mr Hodgson himself came into this world from farming, and collecting books on Friesians. He took up bookselling as he stopped milking dairy cows, he said. It's just expanded.

There may be 40 dealers, and around 8,000 antiquarian and second hand books.

"I like books," said the bookseller and collector from near Yarm. "Finding them, collecting them.

"I can never tell you what colleagues are going to bring. There may well be a few Harry Potters, or James Bonds, you might get the odd first edition Dickens. It will be a mix.

"I personally will take about 300 books, some people might bring a couple of dozen.

"We can be a bit nerdish, in the book world," he added. "And what is so wonderful about books is the discovery. Not just of titles we don't know existed, but the content which might have been long since forgotten or superseded."