In the battle for the high street, many independent shops have already waved the white flag.

Everything from rising petrol prices to out of town retail parks have been blamed for their demise and according to the headlines it seems ever more unlikely that the Davids will triumph over the Goliaths. Except perhaps in Pocklington.

Two years ago Sara Waddington, along with her mother, Joyce Hulls, ignored the doom-mongers and realised a long-held dream to open a bookshop. While she admits she was hopelessly naive about the potential pitfalls, so far the gamble has paid off.

"My aunt runs a bookshop in Skipton and has always talked about what a wonderful job it is," says Sara, mother to six-year-old triplets and a one-year-old daughter. "One day we were shopping in Pocklington and realised one of the things it lacked was a good bookshop.

"Looking back there was a million reasons not to do it, but it just felt right and in two years I've not had one regret."

With the supermarkets having dipped their toes into the books market, Sara quickly learnt that while she may not be able to compete on price with the likes of Asda and Tesco, what she could offer was the kind of customer service which often seems to belong to a
different era.

"I don't know whether we are peculiarly lucky, but people who come into our shop are just lovely," she says. "Over the past two years we have built up a good knowledge of what our customers want. We can't give them the latest cut-price celebrity biography, but we can give them advice, we can talk to them knowledgeably about the kind of book
which might interest them; it's a much more personal service.

"There's something very special about browsing in an independent bookshop, but while a lot of people come in for a chat, about 90 per cent end up buying.

"We also made sure we have a good ordering system which means if we haven't got a book in stock we can get it to them the next day."

To celebrate their two years in business and to champion the cause of like-minded businesses, Sara has launched her first literary festival to coincide with Independent Booksellers Week. Its programme is never going to compete with Hay-on-Wye, but she organised it in just two months and hopes it will sow the seeds for bigger events in
the future.

"Of course it's about promoting the shop, but I also wanted it to be about the community," she says.

"Schools in the area are joining in with a short story competition, various businesses in the area are sponsoring events and the local Ramblers and history group are also helping out.

"The highlight will hopefully be an appearance by Gervase Phinn who will be appearing with Valerie Wood, GP Taylor and Matt Brash in a Yorkshire Author Storytime event reading not only their
own work, but something which inspired them to become writers.

"It's so hard for small shops like mine to compete against the big chains, but it's about doing things differently."