Re-racinated

The greengrocer's shop was going to close at short notice on New Year's Eve because the proprietor had developed back trouble and could no longer lift the boxes. She hoped someone else would want to take it over but no one had appeared.

But after New Year it was still open. I went in and found another woman behind the counter. I said 'Oh, you're still open!' She said, yes, she and her husband had gone in to the shop on January 31st and made a snap decision to take it over, keeping on the same staff. They themselves were going to continue doing their own jobs as well.

The shop is called Roots and Shoots. Which is the same name as the charitable organisation started by Jane Goodall (the chimpanzee expert and environmental activist) to provide community service opportunities for young people worldwide. I met her once. After university I applied to work at her research station in the African jungle, unpaid. She invited me to go and see her at a flat in Earl's Court where she was staying along with her husband and baby. She said that my fare out to Africa would be covered but my fare back only if I stayed for the full 2 years. I decided that it was too much of a commitment to make so I declined. I wonder if I should have gone. I would have seen chimpanzees eating roots and shoots. And I would have seen them killing and eating Colobus monkeys, and killing and eating baby chimps within their own troops. Jane Goodall's discovery of the aggressive, carnivorous and cannibalistic behaviours of chimpanzees in the wild revolutionized primatology in the 1960s.

Chimpanzee visitors to Fishguard would be disappointed that while we still have a greengrocer there is no butcher's shop any more.

One Street