Michael McCabe owes his whole career as a second-hand bookseller to a final electricity bill demand.
At the time he was struggling to make ends meet on the dole in the 1980s, but when a bill arrived which he couldn't pay he decided drastic action was needed.
As an avid book collector, Michael took some of them to a car boot sale to raise some much needed cash. However, this landed him in hot water after he was seen and reported to the social security who threatened to stop his benefits.
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But he was given an alternative - go on the Enterprise Allowance scheme, where he would get £40 a week for a year and which didn't require him to sign on because he would be classed as "self-employed."
From these humble beginnings, a lifelong career in the second-hand book trade began.
Michael said: "Before the Enterprise Allowance scheme, I'd been working factories at nights, which for me was better than working in an office. I was always collecting books, and even as a child I was an avid reader and could recite poetry from the age of seven. But I never went down the academic route because for me that kills it."
Seaforth-born Michael opened his first shop in 1988 on the corner of Berry Street and Seel Street, at the site of an established shop next to the Blue Angel nightclub.
But the name of the shop - Henry Bohn - came about completely by chance. It was chosen on the spur of the moment when Michael was asked what he was going to call the shop when he first opened a bank account while on the Enterprise scheme in the 1980s.
The real Henry Bohn was in fact a Victorian-era bookseller, publisher and author of Anglo-German parentage.
But that doesn't stop dad-of-one Michael being frequently mistaken for the man whose name is above the shop, at the three different city centre premises where it has operated over its 30-year history.
"People still call me Henry and call my wife Mrs Bohn," he said.
The most well-known Henry Bohn's was the one Michael opened next - on the old parade of shops that once stood in front of Lime Street station, which also included such legendary names as the Barbara Daley hair salon, the Leather Shop, and the Punch & Judy cafe.
Michael said: "It was the biggest shop I ever had, and loads of people were sad to see it go. There was so much room, with big windows on either side of the door. Everyone could see the shop, whether you were coming out of Lime Street station or were on a passing bus. I didn't appreciate that much at the time."
But following a compulsory purchase order which led to the demolition of the shops to reveal the Lime Street station frontage again, Michael and wife Anis moved into their current premises around the corner, at a former jeweller's shop in London Road, where they have been for the past 13 years.
The shop was closed for several weeks during the autumn when Michael, now aged 75, became seriously ill with covid and had to be put on oxygen while being treated in hospital.
He runs the shop with his wife Anis, 56, who has a Maths degree from India and is also a qualified nutritionist, something which came in useful when she was forced to find alternative employment while the shop was closed for an extended period during lockdown.
Although no stock take has ever been carried out, it is estimated the current premises has around 15,000 books over its two trading floors, with even more stacked up in a storage area.
The majority of the books are arranged according to subject on wooden shelves, but many are also spilling out on to the floor space and filling every crevice.
And it's not just books - Michael is an expert on classical music and hundreds of CDs, LPs and cassettes also fight for space.
The shop is a London Road landmark thanks to the antique clock on the outside - a remnant from the shop's previous incarnation as Brown's the jewellers - which unfortunately no longer works because it would cost thousands of pounds to fix.
Michael said: "I tend to buy more books than I sell, often off our own customers. I don't throw stuff away or sell it for 10p just to get rid of it.
"Some people have been coming here for 30-odd years, ever since I started. We get regular customers coming in to discuss books or put the world to rights, which is a universal phenomenon with bookshops. People just come in to talk. That's nice. For some people it's a social place to gather and talk about things they've read or listened to."
The late Sir Ken Dodd was one of their regular customers, both in the Lime Street shop and the present one.
Anis said: "He was a really nice man and would give us a free ticket to his shows. We used to keep a box of books he'd chosen for him. He was a very well read man. Whenever he walked in, you just had to smile."
Michael himself doesn't own a mobile phone or send emails - though he has read Tolstoy's mammoth War and Peace in just two days.
He said: "All book dealers are eccentric.
"I take one day at a time. I've got no plans to retire, but when I do, I'd love to be able to find somebody to pass the shop on to. People would be sad to see it go.
"It's what's in the books that matters. We're all trapped by our own little horizons, but with a book everything opens out and it's possible to see how magical things are."
