Alton Secondhand bookshop makes generous donation to Cardiac Health

Joan Andrews has been running Alton Secondhand Books for more than forty years.  The shop in Normandy Street, which stocks thousands of books, has become a fixture in the local community. Even though she is in her getting older Joan remains closely involved in running the bookshop, selecting stock, pricing and organising online sales.

Alton Secondhand Bookshop is often offered donations, which they cannot accept, or the shop would be overwhelmed, but they do buy books they think will sell.

This spring one of Joan’s team found a signed paperback, published in 1959 with an interesting inscription, in a box of purchased books. “As a paperback it wasn’t a first edition, the but the author is quite collectible and the message inside the book was unusual,” said Joan.

The book did well enough at auction for Joan to be able to treat her dedicated team and make donations to two local charities with the proceeds of the sale.

Cardiac Health in Alton were one of the charities Joan chose to support. “I chose Cardiac Health because my husband started exercising there in the 1990s – after a heart attack that was nearly fatal. I was encouraged to exercise with him and I’ve never stopped – continuing even after my husband passed away.”

 Denise Ellis, General Manager of Cardiac Health said, “We are delighted with this generous donation from Joan. It will cost us £430,000 to provide 33,500 exercise sessions for local people in 2026 and all our class are subsidised by funding to keep our vital exercise programmes affordable.”