A CHARITY bookshop which has raised £1m selling almost half a million books is celebrating 10 years since its tills started ringing.

The Oxfam Bookshop, in The Cornmarket, Thame, set up shop on December 2, 2000, and since then books, both fact and fiction, have flown off shelves, helping people in need around the world.

The milestone comes just a few days after the shop sold a rare first edition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in May 1945, for £995.

It was bought by a relative of media personality Malcolm Muggeridge after a local resident donated the novel to the shop.

Shop manager Dick Jennens said: “We are really pleased to have reached 10 years, not only that 10 years later we are still here, but Thame is a small market town and has a population of about 14,000 people.

“We have about 500sq ft of retail space so to raise £1m net income is pretty good.”

Stocks were helped when the family of a local art teacher donated his collection of 30,000 books on art and literature after he went into a nursing home. Another woman gifted her husband’s 350 books on photography when he developed Alzheimers.

Mr Jennens said the store ranked 13th out of about 140 similar shops in turnover.

To celebrate the milestone volunteers have showcased some rare books up for sale, including all four titles in Len Deighton’s first spy series, and Five on Kirrin Island, by Enid Blyton.