Mad they may be, as they happily admit many of their friends call them, but Richard Kemp and partner Sara Hall reckon that what Burford really needs is a combined book and hat shop.

And the Madhatter Bookshop, which opened its doors for business last month on the High Street, is the result.

Former publishing executive Mr Kemp, 51, worked for many years for Heinemann and then Pearson, travelling the world to pedal English as a foreign language text books.

Then he worked for Henley Management College, organising leadership and management courses, before starting Leadership Quantum, which offers courses in management training.

Now he is on a mission to bring books back to his home town of Burford. And both he and Ms Hall, a solicitor by trade, have put their savings where their mouths are by buying the premises of a bookshop that closed down earlier this year.

He said: “We believe reading inspires thinking, enjoyment and community.”

But why hats too?

Ms Hall answered: “That’s fun. And hats are coming back in for all ages. Definitely for weddings, where women really want something glamorous and individual to make their whole outfit look different, but for all sorts of other occasions too. We are also thinking of starting a hat-hire business too.”

After years working as a corporate solicitor for a large national electricity producer, she was inspired to go into modern milinery after one of the couple’s daughters, Ilka, 16, did work experience at the Hatbox in Oxford’s Covered Marked — and loved it.

Now the old bookshop, housed in a Cotswold stone building at 122 High Street, has had a facelift.

Suddenly its interior seems far from poky. Indeed it appears positively spacious, with hats on the left when you enter, and books on the right. And straight ahead is a comfortable browsing area where customers can take their time, have a cup of tea and read before they buy.

When I visited two days before the opening, a finishing coat of paint was going on the walls, book shelves were going up — and most exciting of all, the first lorry-load of books arrived on the scene — a fact I duly wrote down in my note book, using a pile of hat boxes to lean on.

Amid all the bustle it felt a little churlish to ask Mr Kemp why he should choose now to start up an independent bookshop, just when everyone knows they are under electronic attack.

Sites such as Amazon are moving in on the distribution front and book readers such as the Kindle are hitting the product side. So is it a case of this duo trying to hold back the high-tech tide?

Mr Kemp said: “There is a particular community here and Burford School is an integral part of it. We plan to work very closely with the school and we see collaborating with children and teens as key.

“For instance, we shall offer more than just work experience to teens. We shall appraise their business ability and produce performance reviews in a fun way.”

Mr Kemp plans to promote reading groups among all ages with a strong emphasis on introducing them to local authors.

He said: “We love reading and think it is important for the community that it remains an important part of people’s lives.”

He added: “We believe that engaging children with reading as a social experience can have good benefit on literacy skills and creative expression in the classroom and hope to explore this with reading clubs aimed at reluctant boy readers and GCSE and A’ level candidates — along with promoting book clubs for general readers of all kinds.

“We are forging links with local schools to bring the business skills of bookselling and successful enterprise to secondary school students.”

On top of all this the couple hope to tap into the tourist matket.

Mr Kemp said: “We are conscious that some of the greatest writers and thinkers in English have created their works within a 20 mile radius of Burford. We hope visitors may be moved to take some great writing home as a deep memento of a trip to Oxford and the Cotswolds.”

All these ideas about keeping children and teens reading are of course happening against a background of the threat to the very existence of public libraries — which, paradoxically enough, could work in the Madhatter’s favour, though he was reluctant to be drawn on the subject.

But why are teenage boys in particular a difficult group to get reading? And is the idea of mixing hats with books likely to attract boys — or will they see such things as girlie?

Ms Hall said: “Well we sell hats for boys too, like pork pies and trilbies. And we have already found the girls bring in boys to help them try on hats.

“I think boys are more interested in computers than books — but we did not want anyone to lose the habit of reading.”

She added: “It is early days but things have gone much better than we expected.

“The support has been profound. And many more people than we thought have not only wished us all the best but have got their wallets out too. We really are pleased.”