Japanese turn to Hay-on-Wye for help following Fukushima (From Hereford Times)
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Japanese turn to Hay-on-Wye for help following Fukushima
11:00am Thursday 16th August 2012 in Hay-on-Wye
King of Hay Richard Booth; Mayor of Kakamigahara Mori Shin; Mayor Mori's wife Mori Mieko.
A JAPANESE mayor has met the King of Hay hoping books might invigorate his town following the Fukushima disaster.
Mori Shin, from Kakamigahara, was in Hay-on-Wye to find out more about the town’s famous second hand bookshops.
The earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March last year has left Mayor Mori looking for a way of reinvigorating his city and he believes literature is the way forward.
The visitors met deputy mayor Robert Golesworthy and were presented with a copy of Hugh Parsons' book Planet Hay as a memento of their trip.
They heard Paul Harris, owner of Hay’s Oxford House Books, give an account of the birth of the book town before going on a guided tour of bookshops.
Richard Booth, the self-appointed King of Hay, then welcomed mayor Mr Mori and the delegation to his office at Hay Castle to hear more about how the second-hand book trade transformed the border market town into an internationally renowned book town.
