The Fourth Idea Bookshop

The Fourth Idea Bookshop was co-founded by Rob Bradshaw and Andy Swinson. It was organised as a collective of seven people: four full-time and three part-time workers.

It was a radical, 'hippyish bookshop' which took an active role in the Federation of Radical Booksellers. Fourth Idea became a centre for distributing information and advice. They stocked books covering sexual politics, socialism, anarchism, right to health and food, fiction and academic texts. They also stocked lots of pamphlets.

The bookshop was a "care-of'' address for the local Anti-Facist Committee. The far right were a constant threat — stickers, letter bombs, threatening phone-calls, physical attacks on staff — these were regular occurrences. To protect staff and customers screens on the front windows, grills on the upstairs windows and shatterproof glass were installed.

A flood forced the bookshop to close for two vital months. They hence lost money from student trade which they were heavily dependent on.

It is widely assumed that bad financial decisions played a part in the bookshop’s collapse and that politics played a role in those decisions.

Names of those linked or involved with the bookshop are Reuben Goldberg, Ellie Owen and Louis Charalambous. Charlie Unsworth worked there in the late 1970s.

Sources:

Radical Bookshops Listing, Radical Bookshop History Project (November 2023) [Available online here, accessed 8.7.2025]

The Radical Bookseller, No.4, Jan/Feb 1981; No 17/18, Sept/Oct 1982; No 44, Jan/Feb 1986