Soldier and Scholar Bookshop at 215 Barker Street, was opened over 20 years ago by Joyce Sanders. She came to Castlemaine after a long time in Canberra and Melbourne, because it reminded her of her native Alabama.
Joyce has sadly packed up and retired in 2022 emptying the building of books. Over the years many locals worried that she would be found crushed to death by a tower of books it was so crammed. Les once visited her and realised that a back room was actually a kitchen. There were books in the oven.
When researching Les’s notebook (which he keeps in his top pocket ands writes his ideas as they come to him, morning, noon or often at night) it was a delight to find a little sketch that might have been the first idea to draw Joyce’s bookshop.
Photos of Joyce and her books by Eliza Tree.
More about the closing down of Joyce’s Bookshop here>>
