Raconteur who wrestled to keep Foyles in the family
The chairman of the famous bookshop had to buy the business back after his aunt left everything to charity

David Teather writing in The Guardian:

'The whole place was a mess'... Christopher Foyle.

Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Five minutes into meeting Christopher Foyle, chairman of Foyles bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, and he is stuck into a story about the time he was wrestling a shoplifter in Soho Square.

"I was very calm, very friendly, I said, 'Excuse me, I think you might have some books there you didn't pay for, would you like to come back to Foyles and we'll just discuss it?', you see. And at that point they usually come back quietly or they lash out, or run away or whatever; this chap lashed out. I remember, he kept on trying to kick me in the groin, so what I did was with one hand I held him away from me by the knot of his tie, the other hand I held him by the end of his tie. Anyway we ended up grappling and eventually I remember we were rolling around in the gutter and the next moment, I found myself being hauled to my feet by a burly policeman and he by another. The curious thing about this man was they were books on breaking codes and ciphers. It turned out he was an officer in MI5."

Charming, at least mildly eccentric, and something of a raconteur, Foyle, who is 64,
invests his stories with enough vim that he seems to be telling them for the
first time. He has the scruffiness that suggests old money, he is wearing the
cucumber-and-salmon socks of the Garrick Club, and works from an office with
dark wood panels and a grand fireplace that was once his aunt's sitting room
when she ruled the family business. When he took over eight years ago, the
room, through an unmarked door in the shop, had been locked up and forgotten.
There are cardboard boxes stacked up, full of books that he is moving to his
house, their contents noted in black marker; Russia, communism, politics, the
Middle East, Africa, archaeology, anthropology and so on.

Read the full piece here.