Shop Local

Writing about Dave Gates’ new website got me thinking. I know everyone bangs on about how we should support our Milford on Sea village shops, and I suspect we all have the best intentions to do so.  But, do we really do it?

Indeed there is something quite romantic in living in a village with ‘old fashioned’ shops, and I guess we all know the reason why we should support them, we all want to, but life is busy, local shopping takes time, and the big supermarkets are easy to use for us all.

I am as guilty as the next man, but given the time and chance, I try when I can, but never often enough.  We must be pretty unique in having two butchers, a greengrocers, an independent grocers store, a florist, a model shop, a launderette, (a hundred hairdressers!) etc, for just 5000 villagers. Like many today, these guys must be finding life pretty tough, so it would be a great gesture of support if we could all buy a little more from the village shops before we all mourn their passing and they become a fond but distant memory.

As I sit here enjoying another whisky, I have calculated that if every resident just spent another £10 in the village shops each week, they would share £50,000 weekly, and that is the sort of sum that can seriously help their survival.

Would lots of small actions really make a difference? I reckon so, as the old saying goes; ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ – Answer; ‘In bite-size pieces’.