Bookshop Spotlight: Cant a mil

11 Whitchurch Road, Mynydd Bychan, Caerdydd CF14 3JN

In 2014, Jo Knell decided she wanted to establish a bookshop on the east side of Cardiff. “Without any trumpet playing or it being a big deal I wanted the language of the shop to naturally be Welsh,” she says. Cant a mil has “grown gradually” over the past decade, bringing customers a range of Welsh books for children, adults and those learning the language. Outgrowing its old premises on the same street, the new shop is easier to spot – boasting big windows that offer a view of its interior – and has been “significantly busier since the move”.

The past few years have been busy overall; with more time on their hands, more people from outside Wales committed to learning the language during the pandemic, boosting the shop’s online business. Meanwhile, the physical shop is frequented by families and readers who want to improve their Welsh – all welcomed by the team at Cant a mil, who are “very aware that many customers are nervous about speaking Welsh” and “always try to put people at their ease”. The bookshop hosts free, popular, weekly reading and conversation groups, to help support people learning the language.

If you want to learn Welsh but don’t know how to start or where to go it can be much easier to walk into a shop and ask the person behind the till. We offer a unique position through our availability every day for direct contact with the language.

However, the owner tells me it has been a difficult time for specialist bookshops in Wales, and many have closed down over the years, struggling to compete with the larger English-language bookshops and online retailers. In this challenging climate, bookshops continue to play a key role in enabling the government to fulfil its ambition of reaching one million Welsh speakers in the next 25 years. “If you want to learn Welsh but don’t know how to start or where to go it can be much easier to walk into a shop and ask the person behind the till,” Knell says. “We offer a unique position through our availability every day for direct contact with the language.” The booksellers are “promoting and safeguarding the language every day”, and Knell says she wants to see “much more obvious support for Welsh-language bookshops from the Welsh government”.

A key event in the calendar is the National Eisteddfod – a large cultural festival held in different parts of Wales. In the past, many independent bookshops would set up stalls  in the various venues the festival was held at, but this has changed in recent years as the cost of participating in the festival has gone up. “For those shops that do decide to have a stall, the main competition bizarrely is our own supplier and supporter of independent bookshops, the Books Council of Wales, who are funded by the Welsh government,” Knell says.

Despite the challenges, customers see the value in specialist bookshops like Cant a mil. Some are “fiercely loyal” and choose to support the bookshop despite the convenience of buying books elsewhere. “For example, we have customers who go to the National Eisteddfod every year, wherever it is held in Wales, make a list of all the new releases and then come home and buy the books from us,” the owner explains. Others travel from all over the country to visit the shop, recognising the key role it plays in “helping to keep the language alive and healthy”.