I received a cheery email on Monday from Mel Harris, the press officer of Waterstones. She wrote: “I’ve been away for the best part of a year on maternity leave, so just wanted to renew contact and jog your memory (er. . . and mine!) as to the many wonderful ways Waterstones press office can provide a variety of book-related content and competitions to help fill shopping, lifestyle, arts and book pages.”

She might have added Gray Matter pages, for I cannot resist pointing out that after the company’s controversial dropping of the apostrophe from Waterstone’s, Ms Harris now seems reluctant to use one anywhere near the name. “Waterstones press office,” indeed! The very next sentence mentions “Waterstones guide to the best new books”. Oh dear.

Some years ago — actually back in the mid 1980s — our much-respected local booksellers Blackwell’s was prevailed upon to drop its apostrophe. Company boss Toby Blackwell demanded its reinstatement. I remember writing something about it, though the clipping has gone from our files. I asked a senior Blackwell’s figure if he could fill me in about it; he went one better and got the authorised answer from Toby.

He wrote: “Chris Gray is absolutely right. The new retail management wanted and used BLACKWELL. Following my feelings backed up by my asking our customers face to face, I got it changed back to BLACKWELL’S and with our traditional apostrophe. Our traditional dark blue had been changed to a designer dreary sludge colour, so I got it changed back to the standard Oxford University dark blue.

“We can of course keep electronically up to date behind the scenes, but in public I am a traditionalist, definitely not like our unspeakable modernising (codeword for messing up) political masters.

“I hope Chris approves.”

I certainly do.