The eccentric “kingdom” that loves the book (Image: Richard Collett) In 1977, Richard Booth declared himself ‘king’ of Hay-on-Wye to save the Welsh border town from financial ruin. Now, the famous spot is celebrating its legacy. THE On April 1, 1977, second-hand bookshop owner Richard Booth donned a homemade crown, walked the streets of Hay-on-Wye and declared himself “King of Hay” outside the gates of the Welsh town’s Norman-era castle. Holding a royal scepter fashioned from brass plumbing and with the freshly sewn green and white flag of the new “Kingdom of Hay” flying behind him, Booth informed the bewildered residents and press that with himself as “king,” independence from the UK would encourage tourism and revitalize the city’s declining economy. Booth issued passports, stamps and currency for his new ‘nation’, ‘cabinet ministers’ were elected after a few too many drinks at the local pub, and he would later appoint his horse, Goldie, prime minister. He granted citizenship and peerage to his supporters and admirers and would rule his self-proclaimed kingdom from the ramparts of Castle Hay until his death in 2019. “Booth was a showman and a businessman,” said Marie Fforde, a local historian who works for the Hay Castle Trust. “He saw every opportunity for publicity. The declaration of independence was part of that keen sense of publicity, his eccentric and iconoclastic streak and his love of attention.” The bookseller’s bold bid for independence revived the fortunes of an ailing town. “A lot of small towns were in decline at the time,” explained Dr. Reg Clarke, who worked as Booth’s publicist in the 1970s and became the Kingdom of Hay’s “Minister of Technology.” “The decline was happening in small Welsh towns everywhere. People in the rural areas would get an education but then move out and find work elsewhere.” Booth’s marketing ploy brought an influx of curious tourists and bibliophiles to Hay-on-Wye, allowing the second-hand book market to flourish. With a population of just 1,500, the town is still home to more than 20 bookshops and plays host to the UK’s biggest literary event, the annual Hay Festival. Richard Booth proclaimed himself king of the Welsh border town on April 1, 1977 (Credit: Alex Ramsay/Alamy) Forty-five years after declaring independence, Booth’s ruined castle – where he lived and ruled – has been turned into a museum by the Hay Castle Trust. I was in Hay-on-Wye on the museum’s opening day in May 2022, as Hay Castle opened to the public for the first time in its 900-year history. The half-ruined 12th-century Norman monument of Hay Castle rises above a grassy knoll in the center of town. In the old moat of the castle, I absorbed the shelves of an open-air “Honesty Bookshop” (where each book costs £1 and the money is paid into an honesty box) full of novels, stories, travelogues, classics, murder mysteries, biographies, recipe books and more but. Honesty Bookshop’s alfresco area doubled as a street food market in the middle of the Hay Festival, and festival goers feasted on falafel and tacos as they perused their latest purchases in the shadow of Hay Castle. In the surrounding streets there were more pop-up food and market stalls, while the main street in front of the castle was lined with second-hand shops, antique shops and a fascinating stationery shop selling cartographic oddities. The town is still home to more than 20 bookshops and hosts the annual Hay Festival (System: Richard Collett) From the “Crow’s Nest” viewing platform atop the castle tower, I watched the River Wye meander through the Welsh countryside to the west, while to the south, the Black Mountains rose to form the dramatic border with England. An information board informed me that this was about “The Welsh Marches”, the lawless borders between England and Wales that were rife with conflict and ruled by ruthless “Marcher Lords” during the Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Medieval and Tudor eras. Booth was like a rogue Lord of the Marcher in a modern guise, and there is no doubt that Hay-on-Wye’s location in this murky border region fueled his desire for autonomy. “I like to think Hay-on-Wye has its own identity,” Fforde told me later. “It’s been a long time since it was neither Welsh nor English and it still identifies as a border town.” Born in 1938, the man who would be king moved to a rural estate near Hay-on-Wye when he was young. In his autobiography, My Kingdom of Books (written by Booth and his stepdaughter, Lucia Stuart), Booth explained how he was never destined to succeed in the financial career his parents set him up for in London. Instead, his passion for books led him into the second-hand book trade and he opened Hay-on-Wye’s first bookshop in 1962 after buying the Old Fire Station. In 1964, Booth impulsively bought Hay Castle when it came on the market, renovating the historic structure into a bookstore, residence and venue for his many parties. He then took over the town’s old farm hall – which remains ‘Richard Booth’s Bookshop’ to this day – and by 1978, the shop was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest second-hand bookshop with over a million books in anytime. “I don’t think there was an interest in books before Richard,” Fforde said. “He saw a business opportunity and took it. He timed his move into books very well, as many libraries were getting rid of their books at the time. This meant he had stock very cheaply and could stack them high.” Hay Castle recently opened to the public for the first time in its 900-year history (Credit: Adrian Seal/Alamy) By 1976, Hay-on-Wye was being marketed by the Welsh Tourist Board as the world’s first ‘Town of Books’ as bookshops sprang up on every street corner. “Booth had branches and stores all over town,” Clark said. “A lot of people came to Hay to work for Richard, and he changed the population and the nature of the town. Many of the local people he trained went on to set up shops of their own.” But the economic reality was harsh, as Clark explained. “His main issue was a lack of capital. With second-hand bookshops, things have always gone from one disaster to another. That’s just the nature of this kind of business.” Increasingly disillusioned, Booth believed that government policies were abandoning the agricultural economies of cities in favor of new and larger supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centers. As Booth’s personal finances became increasingly precarious, he decided it was time for drastic action, so in 1977, Booth informed a visiting journalist he met in the pub that, “Hay will be independent of Britain!” “I would be ‘Richard Coeur de Livre,’” Booth wrote, “the monarch with more pages than most.” April 1st 1977 was an unusual day in Hay-on-Wye. Canon firing from the tiny nation’s “cannonboat” (actually a small rowboat on the River Wye) signaled the declaration of independence. A flag was unveiled in front of Hay Castle. and Booth was crowned “King of Shaw” as the new national anthem played. The statement may have been made on April Fool’s Day, but as Fforde told me, the political reasons behind the stunt were serious. “Personally, I don’t think Booth wanted to be king in the literal sense,” he explained. “I would say he wanted to be king in the sense that he wanted to be heard and taken seriously, as he had strong views on how the agricultural economy could survive in the climate of the late 20th century.” Richard Booth’s crown jewels are on display at Hay Castle, along with the independence flag and other Kingdom of Hay memorabilia (Courtesy: Richard Collett) Visiting Booth’s former home, now a museum, I set out to explore the recently opened galleries dedicated to the centuries-old history of High Castle. I was immediately drawn to the top floor room containing the ‘Richard Booth Collection’. Booth’s crown jewels are protected by a glass cabinet. The original independence flag hangs on the wall. and Kingdom of Hay stamps, coins and passports are on display. Although the United Kingdom never recognized Booth’s bid for independence, he received ambassadors and support from other micronations, including the Principality of Hutt River, a self-styled micronation in Western Australia, and the Free Independent Republic of Frestonia, a micronation formed (also in 1977) to protest the demolition of local houses in London. Journalists and the press flocked to the Kingdom of Hay and the publicity boosted the economy of Hay-on-Wye as crowds of tourists flocked to visit the quaint ‘City of Books’ ruled by a king. But not everyone at Hay-on-Wye was happy with Booth. “When he declared his independence, it didn’t necessarily go over well with all the locals,” Clark said. “Booth was the favorite of the Welsh tourist board, but somehow he fell out with them. integral part of the United Kingdom’. In 1988, Booth even fell out with the newly founded Hay Festival, believing that the festival’s focus on newly released books was bad for the city’s second-hand bookstores. However, even without the Hay King’s initial blessing, the Hai Festival was a success. It is now the largest literary event of its kind in the UK and returning in 2022 after a Covid-19 hiatus saw around 500 events held over two weeks, with 600 speakers and 200,000 ticket sales. Until 1978, Richard Booth’s Bookshop was the world’s largest used bookshop (Credit: Richard Collett) Booth died on August 20, 2019, but “Kingdom of Hay” lives on. “There is a pedigree for the King,” said Fforde. “In 2018, Richard Booth declared his succession and Ollie Cooke is his successor. The city still has a flag and there have been many Independence weekends -…
