PLEASE STAY.
02/07/2026
Today was a BIG milestone for DCB!
I signed a ten year lease for our shop at 74-78 Piccadilly.
We moved in back in November. For various unavoidable reasons, up until now we've been operating on a temporary contract. It's kept me up at night, it's scared me and stressed me out, the feeling that if something really unexpected happens despite all the hard work and the graft, we could have just 30 days to pack our bags. The thought that all this hard work could be over before it's really started has sent shivers down my spine. Probably there was nothing to worry about, probably I was overthinking the many ways DCB could become a drifting roofless book shop again, but my experience in business so far tells me that the unexpected can happen, that it does happen, and you won't see it coming when it does. That's why it's not called 'the expected'.
Trusting that this would come good, and taking this risk has paid off. The wait has been so, so worth it and today I signed on the dotted line to be here in this building for the next 10 years. And after three years of being able to control very little, some security, at last, feels really, really good.
10 WHOLE YEARS MATES!!!! I was 34 when I opened DCB, by the end of this lease I'll be 47. I have no idea who I'll be at 47. Still a genius and a fashion icon obviously, but other than that, no idea.
Aside from getting married (#no regrets) I've never committed to anything for that long, never had a job for ten years, never lived in a house for ten years.
Years ago I saw a poster on a wall in Shelton. It had a photograph of the back alleys of a row of terraces, and just said the words PLEASE STAY.
I've thought about that poster ever since.*
I've never said out loud "I'll be in Stoke for the next ten years", but I guess I always knew I was staying.
Now I know that DCB is the reason why.
I believe that what I'm trying to build here matters.
Why does it matter? Because books are little repositories of human life and effort and art and creativity, I think Drop City Books is unique and special in the way it makes people of all ages feel excited to read. Whilst you are reading you are useless to big tech and capitalism, you are on your own, but absolutely not alone. This town needs more books and more reading, and the whole world is going to need more of both if we want to claw back the last crumbs of our attention spans and steel ourselves against whatever outrageous bullshit is coming for us in the next ten years.
I believe that bringing world class authors to Stoke is important, not just because our events are an excellent night out (they are by the way, you should come) but because the conversations have ripples, they give people ideas, they embolden people to write and talk and think and create long after they leave the room. These conversations are important because getting out of our houses and being in a room together with kind people we know and kind people we don’t, is more vital than it's ever been.
I also believe that a big fat shining orange bookshop on the high street in Hanley, where queer people and displaced people and disabled people and all marginalised people are celebrated, and recognised, where everything is chosen and curated and arranged with love and care, sends a message to people who live here.
Good things happen here. Change feels good. It's a message I need to hear most days, I have a feeling I’ll still need to hear it in ten years time.
So I'm all in for ten more years of this, it still all rests on whether you keep showing up, keep buying books, keep coming to events, keep believing that good things happen here.
And if we're staying, which it seems like maybe a lot of us are. I think it’s time to get serious about what staying means.
*the poster I’ve never forgotte is the work of artist Andrew Kilgallen, the photograph I’ve used was taken by my excellent, talented friend Katrina Wilde.