SOS

Save Our Shop!

My small town has one delicatessen and one pet supplies shop. I dropped into the former for a coffee and as I drank it watched a well-heeled woman come in and make some purchases: a dozen bottles of their not-cheap wine here, several jars of not-cheap sauces there, a panettone, fancy biscuits and so on. Not once did she ask the prices and the goods were still being packed when I left. They must have come to at least £100200. Nice work if you can get it, for her and for the shop.

Then I went to the pet shop to make my cat and dog food order which will be brought round later today. Dan who runs the place with his mum was working on a poster to put in the window, a plea for custom: use us or lose us!

Of course it's handy to stick the pet food in the supermarket trolley as you do your regular shop, it's one less thing to think about and the prices are low. But it means the situation here is dire. Dan, who has a young family, and his mother, who has several cats, have not taken any wages for 6 weeks, there isn't enough money coming in. The shelves are half empty because they can't afford to restock. Hardly anyone uses the shop - even though they will match the supermarket prices AND deliver to your door. They've only survived until now because they have a sympathetic landlord but things cannot continue this way for much longer.
It's heartbreaking, it really is.