A FEW months after a town said goodbye to a bookshop that had been in the High Street for two decades has welcomed newcomer Moonraker Books.

The new store moved into the former Deacons Jewellers site in Royal Wootton Bassett.

Des Longhurst is the co-owner of the business with his wife Clare and son Adam.

It started operated as a wholesale supplier since 1994, supplying books to major businesses like WHSmith.

But they decided to take the leap of faith and open their first store in Bassett.

Des told the Adver: “Moonraker Books has been in Bassett for over 25 years now. It supplies independent bookstores and big chains.

"We’ve been in the wholesale game for quite some time now and I’ve always had an ambition to open up a shop and the opportunity came up so we went for it.

“It’s not the best time in the world.

"A few people thought I was mad but I thought it was a good opportunity.

"I had a chat with Richard from Deacons as he was closing the branch in Bassett and we agreed on some terms and then we moved in after it closed. It all fell into place.”

People in the town were excited to see a bookshop return to the High Street.

Store managers Fiona Monro and partner Kevin Grimley will be the faces of the shop.

“I’m old fashioned. I’m a believer in the High Street.

"We should get some more independents into it and get it back to where it was a few years ago,” Des said.

“It would make it more interesting to have a good spread of stores.

“We were desperate to open on October 3 for National Bookshop Day but we had so much work to get done that we couldn’t open for another week. It was an ambitious goal that we couldn’t meet.

“The first day being open was phenomenal. It was very busy throughout the day and the feedback from the locals was very positive. I always thought this was a town that would support a bookshop because of Bassett Books.”

Despite it continuing to stay popular in the town the shop is making sure to stay Covid safe.

Only a few people allowed in at a time, hand sanitisers, signs encouraging customers to wear facemasks and regularly cleaning surfaces.