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Good morning. On Tuesday this week Richard Booth died, aged 80. He was the man who transformed Hay-on-Wye into a place full of bookshops. I’m surprised his death did not rate more media coverage. As well as promoting books, Richard’s vision led others to start the annual Hay Festival, probably the greatest of all literary events, which sold a quarter of a million tickets this year. It’s not based in Hay by accident. Richard realised 50 years ago that small and remote rural towns needed to diversify to survive. He thought the future of a place like Hay could be found on feeding the mind and creating a sense of excitement about literature. He took over the old fire station and opened what he called “the largest second-hand bookshop in the world”. Once there were almost 40 bookshops in Hay, a town with a population of only 15 hundred. Even in this age of the internet, roughly half that number survive. Many have further diversified. Richard’s own bookshop, which he sold more than a decade ago, now includes a cinema, café and other attractions. Richard Booth was eccentric, and cultivated publicity. In 1977 he declared Hay-on-Wye an independent kingdom of which he was the monarch. The divine right of kings was, he said, a challenge to the divine right of officials. What was then thought ridiculous seems a bit less so in the light of our political confusions today. Richard showed that eccentric mavericks can have a lasting influence on small communities, and more widely too. Book towns are now an international phenomenon – there are over 50 of them. The Hay Festival has offshoots internationally as well. There’s a lot to be said for eccentrics – people who view the world off-centre or from the margins. The Christian story is full of them. John the Baptist was eccentric but also prophetic. He inhabited the fringes of his society rather than the big city. Jesus taught in some of the smallest communities of Galilee, a region itself on the edge. Its biggest town at the time, Sepphoris, doesn’t even rate a mention in the New Testament. Eccentric to his own society, Jesus is hardly marginal in later history. We’re mistaken if we think the world is shaped solely by those in power or even those most frequently in the news. At the edges of society and among the eccentrics we may find the most stimulating and transformative people and ideas. Richard Booth deserves our remembrance and gratitude.