The Wansdyke & District Forums

Sad news for our end. The shop is to close at the month end, Mrs Tutt is retiring and there is nobody to take it on. It has been a shop since before I was born, post office counter and all, and now it will be cottages I expect, or a holiday let. I know it is only a shop. But it is where you heard who was poorly and who had had a baby and who had passed; it was the village talking to itself, and when it goes a village stops being able to hear itself somehow. I shall miss it more than I can rightly say. End of an era is a worn-out phrase but I cannot think of a truer one this morning.

Oh Nancy, I am so sorry. You are quite right, it is not only a shop, it never is. The shop is how a village knows itself. We lost ours years back and the green has been quieter ever since; you do not realise how much the small daily seeing of one another held the place together until it stops. Do give Mrs Tutt our love from the forum. Forty years behind that counter is a great service to a place, even if nobody hands out medals for it.

this is the bit of village life i did not understand when i first moved here, that the shop and the pub and the bus arent conveniences, theyre the actual village, the place where it happens. lose them and youve got houses but not a village. sobering. sorry Nan.

That is it exactly Dave, and you have learned it quicker than most. Houses but not a village. I shall remember that one. There. I have had my mourn and I shall put the kettle on. Thank you for letting an old woman go on.