1920- 1935
1920
The age of the petrol engine is well and truly established and the firm's last horse-drawn van is sold.
Over the previous fifty years the only book which had appeared under the John Menzies imprint was a little monograph on the schooling of ponies, by the Marchioness of Breadalbane. Publishing had brought the firm some esteem, but little profit; but now they toyed with publishing again.
The lists of the 1920s are not very exciting. They contain collections of comic tales and party dialogues of the Humorous Readings Maistly Scotch variety; and a few guide-books and publicity brochures, the sort of illustrated booklets which the prospective holidaymaker might obtain by writing to the Town Clerk and enclosing a sixpenny postal order.
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1921
John F. Menzies, son of Charles T. Menzies and grandson of the founder, enters the firm.
Despite setbacks and grim forecasts John Menzies & Company pressed ahead, spending money, enlarging their bookstall operations and taking businesses off the hands of owners exhausted by the struggle.
Finlay's, the Scottish tobacconists whose kiosks often stood cheek-by-jowl with a station bookstall, succumbed to a Menzies bid in 1922.
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1927
John R. Menzies, the founder's son, retires as managing director but continues as chairman.
After the war the halfpenny comic papers returned. There were weeklies which catered for every phase of childhood, from Chick's Own to the Magnet.
There were sixpenny thrillers and sporting and adventure stories, Edgar Wallace, Sidney Horler, Nat Gould and Zane Grey being the most sought-after authors.
There was a superior range at sevenpence (3p) where you might find the works of Jeffrey Farnol, P.G. Wodehouse and E. Phillips Oppenheim.
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1928
The company returns to Princes Street and retail bookshops with the acquisition of Elliott's shop at 16-17 Princes Street. The Menzies Pension Fund, a considerable innovation, is founded by John F. Menzies. During the following decade, aided by inflation, profits hovered around £100,000 p.a.
Shadows of the imminent Depression fell first across the station bookstalls. Their gross receipts for 1928 on the L.M.&S. routes, which now covered most of Scotland and the west-coast routes from London, were £510,000. Next year they were £494,000 and the year after that £478,000; small reductions, but significant in an area which had consistently shown upward trends.
When the railway companies started behaving with ingratiating politeness the wholesalers knew the slump had arrived. In 1931 the L.M.&S. actually offered John Menzies all the bookstall contracts south of Carlisle. "It is not intended to ask for formal tenders," they said.
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1933
For the first time, Menzies erects a stall at the Royal Highland and Agricultural Show. A substantial structure, it is denounced by the authorities as being "too modern", most of the other stalls being made of canvas.
This was the year of the Menzies centenary. Tributes flowed in from rival wholesalers, from the newsagents' federations and from publishers. John Murray of Albermarle Street said how much he and his authors owed
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1934
Wholesale branches are opened at Dumfries and Motherwell, bringing the number to 13. Acquisitions continue.
On a map of the Menzies kingdom in the middle 1930s the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland are peppered with red dots.
They are the station bookstalls, most densely congregated in the central belt, from Ayr through Glasgow and Edinburgh to Fife; scattered also among the towns and villages, along all the rural railways, from those which penetrate the ragged promontories of the north-west to those which accompany the Border streams, hurrying down to the Tweed.
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1935
John R. Menzies dies and his brother Col. Charles T. Menzies, succeeds him as chairman.
Conscious of his dignity and the responsibilities of his office,
the bookstall manager awaits his customers.