Lockdown has, I believe, made us consider ‘community’ and over the months I have remembered our lives as children just post war, the rationing, the making do, the repayment of the country’s debt, the lack of complaint allowed by our parents. Why? Because we had been born too late to be part of the generation of kids evacuated from their homes as the skies filled with bombers. We were not delivered by trains to bunk in with strangers in small villages for years, with some schooling if lucky, often half days, as the local children had the morning, the evacuees the afternoon. No online teaching for them. And while they were in rural areas, frequently their mothers were victims of the bombing. Consequently we post-war kids were aware we were the lucky ones.
I remembered going to the corner shop with mum, holding out our ration cards for sweets. Boiled or liquorice I seem to remember. I remembered my mum chatting to everyone else who was registered at the corner shop, their ration cards at the ready too. Corner shops were a community asset. Corner shops were part of our lives, and then the supermarkets landed.
But… But … In Carlton Miniott a step from Thirsk , there is a corner shop, not admittedly on the corner, but it is a precious wonderful community asset. Carlton Stores and Post Ofice is family owned, there they all are, with a couple of helpers, but it is on Jack I inflict myself most often though they are all glad to see us, all glad to laugh with us, chat with us. In masks still , as the family cannpt afford to become unwell for who would run this priceless asset?
So, come with me, down the path, and into this world of wonders. Dad makes their very own coleslaw. I eat too much, we all do, it is scrumptious, and not a calorie included. Ho hum
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You need a birthday card? There, over to the right, just along from the newspapers, and we have loyalty cards for well – cards, ‘There you go,’ Jack says. Stamp goes the -well – stamper. When full, we have a free card. So peruse the great choice carefully. But don’t take up too much room for it is here we queue for the Post Office part. The queue gives one time to check the padded envelopes, and gather up cellotape from the shelves to your right, and on the other side; biscuits and cakes. And there they are – Grandma Wild’s Shortbread biscuits – again calorie free Dick has decided because he eats LOTS.
Bought your stamps, have you, and posted your parcels, had a chat with whoever in the family is behind the perspex shield? So move on with me round the centre aisle. Bread? Yes. Ibuprofen ? Yes.
Here are the fridge cabinets – independent cheese makers? Oh, yes please, and there is wine for the evening, and in the cool cabinet behind which Jack is waiting are Jones’s deep pies. My friends, deep means deep. Chunky steak, and chunky chicken means chunky. The best we’ve ever tasted, yes really. so home they come.
Then the ham. ‘Just two slices please, Jack.’
Swish goes the slicer. Something to read in the evening? A bookcase to your left as you wait to know how much to pay. But you give what you want for the books, they are donated for charity. Raffles with proceeds to charity take place near to the hot food cabinet, which is empty of pies, pasties and so on, once the blokes in hi-viz jackets and others have popped in. Hot drink too? Here you go. There are knitted toys now Easter is entering people’s consciousness.
Chat chat to Jack, or whoever else is there, then home. On the way a neighbour shares with me that if a regular fails to appear the family make sure all is well. My daughter came from the south to see us. ‘It looks like the front room of their house, and they treated us like friends come to see them for a chat.’
‘That, my girl,’ I said, ‘Is called a corner shop.’ ‘You must cherish it,’ she said. ‘Oh we do,’ I reassured her.
Carlton Miniott – lucky lucky us. We have a proper corner shop, one with a heart, one that every community should have.
