Married couple Victoria and Chris Bonner transform former coal barge moored on Leeds Dock into incredible floating bookshop

Victoria and Chris Bonner spent a year and a half converting the 57ft (17m) vessel, named 'Marjorie R', into a cosy hub where the locals can dive into literature by a log fire. The pair had bought the boat - which could hold 75 tons of coal back in 1946 - ten years ago and first lived in it before turning it into a unique book emporium.

And they said they’d carried out the renovation work on a tiny budget, using cast-off scaffolding boards and scrap wood to complete the remarkable project this year. The barge is moored on Leeds Dock, where it once collected coal, and is the last of its kind in the region, with others scrapped or moved further afield. But Victoria admitted the job hadn’t been plane sailing, adding there were times when the couple felt they were in a disaster episode of the TV show Grand Designs.

She said: “At times we’ve just thought ‘What are we doing?'. You watch things like Grand Designs and you see people crying in a caravan, and we’ve had some moments like that.” Chris added about the money they spent on the project: “Some of the businesses around here have probably spent more on their signs than our whole budget.

"I guess someone with a much bigger budget than us would have paid a team of people to come and do things in a fraction of the time that I’ve done them by watching YouTube videos and swearing at the walls at two in the morning but it's worked out all right.”

The store, which is named Hold Fast Bookshop and opens from Thursday to Sunday, will stock hundreds of second-hand and new editions. And Victoria, who has been married to Chris for 28 years and previously worked in a library, said the couple had always wanted to own a literature shop.

She said: “We’ve got our favourite bookshops up and down the country, and there's just something a bit special about them – clothes shops and shoe shops just don't have that same character to them – and I don't know why that is. I also think that for a lot of people reading is a massive help for mental health. It's either a distraction from difficult things or it's a way to explore difficult feelings or to feel supported or less alone.”

Victoria also said she had met the vessel’s former mechanic, who once helped it run smoothly on Yorkshire’s shipping canals under the eye of its eccentric former captain. She said: “We bumped into a man when he was just walking his dog with his granddaughter, and it turned out he used to do maintenance on the boat in Wakefield.

"And he told us all about the guy who used to drive her – and that everyone used to make fun of him because he would turn up to work in a clean shirt and tie, bearing in mind he was driving a coal barge. Everyone else used to drive them like dodgems, but Norman apparently mollycoddled this boat, and we’re glad he did, she survived because of it. But somewhere out there is Norman’s family, and we would love to meet them.”