The Strangest Thing Can Happen...

Across the Road from the Cookie Jar is our bustling little Metropolis' Tesco.

Everyone said it shouldn't come. Everyone said it would close the local shops, and take business from Spar and Morrison ... I don't think it has.

100 years ago this was one of three cinemas in the Town, never in my time though.

When I was little, it was Woolworths; the original type of Woolworths.

They had counters up and down either side, and in the middle. Different staff working on different counters. Haberdashery, Electrics, Records, Toys, Cloths, Sweets; but my favourite? The heated glass counters which held the warm salted peanuts. I don't remember eating them so much, as pressing my little cold cheeks up against them for a heat of a Saturday morning.

It changed a lot over the years, I can't remember when the heated counters disappeared, but I never liked it quite as much without them. After Woolies went bust, it lay empty for a year, then was a Pound Shop for a year, and the development work started on Tesco.

When they were developing it, they discovered evidence of the old cinema, behind the walls of the stockroom and offices housed upstairs.

The town is much better for having a busy tidy shop in the middle of the main street, than an empty rotting building.