WHAT'S IN STORE?

Before the advent of the motor car the business of travel largely centred on the horse. Whether one sat on the saddle or rode in a cart or carriage, horse-power was the order of the day. 

Just as we require garages to supply our cars with fuel and to repair them when they go wrong, so our ancestors needed a handy blacksmith or farrier to tend to their horses when the need arose.

Horse travel being much less prevalent today we have seen the demise of many of the Farriers and Smiths which were once such a common sight.

The same applies to many other trades which were once common but for which progress has made them unnecessary. For instance not so long ago, no-one would think of leaving home without putting on a hat but now hat shops are a rarity since most people when out and about are happily hatless.

We may  look back on these establishments with nostalgia but time marches on. Farriers became Texaco garages and hat shops and furriers became Primark.

The closing of many familiar high street shops such as Woolworths, Jessops, Blockbuster and the like are merely part of the same process and should not be mourned. 

In time to come, no doubt we shall have local rocket refuelling bays, bionic limb clinics and food pellet dispensers to look forward to.

OPEN ALL HOURS?

I recently paid a visit to the Black Country Living Museum near Dudley. I can heartily recommend this as a fascinating glimpse into a recent but bygone age. Among other things, it seeks to recreate streets just as they were fifty to eighty years ago when the corner shop ruled supreme.

It struck me as I entered an old fashioned grocer's or hardware shop that I was not so much viewing the past as glimpsing the future.

There is nothing quite so sad as seeing the demise of our shops as one by one they succumb to the relentless advance of the supermarket and megastores. Unable to compete with the buying power of these huge establishments, the greengrocer and the butcher sadly close their doors for the last time and likely as not, end up working on the vegetable or meat departments at Tesco or Asda.

It is sad but also completely inevitable. The sweet shop where I spent my pocket money will no doubt be consigned to the museum in future. I can only hope that Joni Mitchell was wrong when she sang 'they took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum'.

Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be *sigh.