Once upon a time, there was a bookshop. It was a two story affair, with well stocked shelves and staff who knew their stuff. It stood at the top of our High Street, literally and metaphorically. In 2001, when the Independent wrote about Walthamstow, they described this shop as East London's Biggest Bookshop, and our town as 'Noisy, chaotic and in your face, but with a few surprises tucked away.' Authors would come to the bookshop to give talks here about their work to literate locals from all over Walthamstow. All sorts of people used the place, a real social mix, all happily browsing the shelves together. Visiting journalists would come up the Victoria Line, saw our bookshop. They knew we weren't a dump, if the first thing they saw at the top of our High Street was an independent bookshop they could only dream about in Hoxton or Stoke Newington. The worst of them would then fill in their article with local colour about dog tracks, but the articles got written, and published. Today's Guardian does mention us. Its in a piece about 'Finger-Lickin Britain': an article describing fried chicken as a 'slave dish' and explaining how David Lammy is ashamed of chicken shops in his constituency. (It may well have been eaten by American slaves, but I bet it was also eaten proudly at family celebrations in West Africa the whole time it was being eaten in the Southern United States.)

Now the bookshop has gone, and it seems the days of journalists seeing beyond the stereotypes are over, if they write about us at all, other than to discuss terror. I typed in 'Walthamstow' on The Independent's search engine today and the highest entry had a relevance of 27% - its in an article about Jamie Oliver- presumably we come up because of his mockney accent. Instead, of our bookshop, at the site overlooking the scandalously empty land which once was the arcade, we have a 99p shop. Google 99p on The Independent and an article comes up about a wages row, the words 'banana republic' in the headline.

So, do I regret that the bookshop has gone? Am I sad it was killed off by a German-owned predator, who then shipped the remainders into a sterile Mall, that it is now a Waterstones and it has gradually homogenized its offering? Do I regret that our main outlet for fiction (apologies to Books Ink, you are just too small for me), is not much better now than a large WH Smith? Yes, I do regret it. Do I wish we didn't have a 99p shop setting the tone at the top of our High Street, where the Market begins? Actually, not necessarily.

I ask myself, as a shop, is it any good?. I have to say, it is. This particular 99p Store is an excellent 99p shop, within the genre of 99p shops. It sticks pretty well to the promises it makes and offers over 99% of its goods at 99p or less (I did find some two types of Dove shampoo marked at £1.99 and £1.69). Everything is cheap; the tools, scrapers and 32oz rubber mallets, chocolate Easter eggs, buy one get one free Robinsons' Barley drinks, the jars of coffee, the garden paraphenalia , the string, the household items, the games - 'have fun with thread'. Its all there, most of the stock looking slightly tawdry, as none of it is 'designed'. It is just as if you had walked in to a Woolworths half a century ago. An eclectic mix, crowding the shelves, and, on the day I visited, crowded with people.

There were far more people in fact than I would have expected, given that the much despised pound shops further down the High Street are not usually this full. Where do these customers all come from I asked myself? This far up the High Street, this close to the Village, there surely can't be many takers locally for this stuff.

And then I heard the accent. Unmistakable. That's not Walthamstow. Those vowels are far too round, the diction much too clear, the voice for too self-confidently projected at the sales staff. Much too Orford Road.

So there you have it. This has to be encouraged. The 99p shop is to shopping for bargains in our High Street what cannabis is to hedonism. For some people it's a gateway shop. Its where the Village People can come when they are too nervous to be seen shopping further down on the market. They come here, pick up a few bargains (six pots of mustard for 99p- 'Well, you can't turn that down can you?') Then maybe later they muster up the courage to wander a bit further down the road, down as far as Sainsbury's perhaps, past Parson's - 'We've found a simply wonderful butchers, don't you know?'. One day, they may even put on their woolly hat and make an expedition to the Windmill, with Jeremy and Jocasta from out of town, right down towards St James's Street. And they will have a tale to tell, won't they, about how they ate out in Walthamstow, braving it among the locals. Eventually, they will walk about as if they live here. And shop locally. But don't forget, your Ladyship, it started here, in the 99p store. Your secret is safe with me.

Next door to the British Heart Foundation.