25 November 2005

St Giles Hospice opened the doors of its charity bookshop in Atherstone for the first time on Friday (25th November).

The new store, located at 111 Long Street, will help raise funds to support the charity’s work caring for local people living with cancer and other serious illnesses.

The shop stocks a wide choice of high-quality second-hand books including fiction, children’s titles, travel and leisure, history, nature, reference and antiquarian volumes.

It also sells a selection of clocks, cameras, pictures, and a range of new goods including stationery and gifts. Greetings cards will be on sale throughout the year, with the hospice’s range of Christmas cards available from the start of the festive season.

Lynwen Truesdale, St Giles Hospice Shops General Manager, says: 'We are delighted to open our new specialist bookshop in Atherstone.

' Book-lovers will be spoilt for choice and, with everything on offer at exceptional value for money prices, they can snap up a real bargain.

' Despite the tremendous support the hospice receives from the local community, St Giles still can't care for everyone who wants our help, so we are asking local people to support the new shop by buying items or donating high quality second-hand books and other goods we can sell.

' Every penny of the proceeds will go towards supporting the hospice’s important work.'

The Atherstone bookshop is open Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 5pm, and further information is available by calling staff on 01827 721613.

The new bookshop is St Giles Hospice’s second – the Mere Green bookshop in Sutton Coldfield was launched more than a year ago and has proved extremely popular with shoppers. The new store brings the charity’s network of hospice shops across the region to fourteen.

The charity's other twelve shops will continue to sell a small selection of books.

St Giles Hospice Shops play a vital role in funding the care offered by the hospice, a registered charity based near Lichfield.

The fourteen shops are located in major towns throughout the hospice's patient catchment area, which ranges from Ashby de la Zouch and Atherstone in the east, to Cannock and Walsall in the west – and from Burton and Uttoxeter in the north, to Sutton Coldfield and Coleshill in the south.

Last year the hospice shops raised a total of £543,000 – and every penny is desperately needed by St Giles. The charity spends almost £5million caring for local people living with cancer and other serious illnesses, as well as providing support for their families and carers, and relies heavily on the support of local people to enable its valuable work to continue.