The nation's press has recently been full of nostalgic pieces about the wonder of Woolworths, a shop which I have long considered a dinosaur on our local High Street, well in need of putting out of its misery. Ours is, like the rest of them, closing down at last. It is also having what they laughably call a closing down sale, though the price reductions of only 20%-50% on much of the over-priced tat they have on offer means that in Walthamstow, the shelves were anything but empty when I looked around today. This may surprise the administrators and people seduced by the hype in the media about massive crowds trying to snap up bargains, but there is virtually nothing that can't be bought cheaper in the nearby shops, even during their "sale". The queues for the tills at Sam 99p Store were of comparable length to Woolies today and the staff feeling less sorry for themselves and miserable. Much nicer to buy things off.
The shop in our High Street does however have a wonderful amount of floorspace, and a very good position. I hope that it will be taken over soon and put to good use by a firm which understands the modern market place, so that more secure and socially useful employment can be created.
I was a bit sadder to see that the nearby Rumours has announced a closing down sale. There was a sales assistant there at one time who had a wonderful eye for colour and display, though sadly I suspect her boss squashed that at some point - or maybe she left, and the shop became just another run of the mill vendor of clothes without a distinctive image or attractive shop front (no money was spent on promoting the place to the public) competing with market traders they could never win against.
Over the road, the shop with no name where the British Red Cross was next to Cafe Azrou, which is nothing more than a glorified market stall itself, also has a sign up claiming it is "Closing Down Everything Must Go". Something however does not look very sincere about this - it may be more a come-on than a warning of their impending doom.
On the surface, I can say that the retail sector in the High Street does not look like it is being decimated yet. Roseby's, which shut in the Mall, was run down by a stupid fit with the Chemical company that owned it more than anything else. It has now been replaced by a branch of WH Smith's, a shop which we did not have locally.
Bunter's Grill, has however turned its toes up: the refurbishment of the popular cafe into a Turkish Restaurant being all but complete, according to the man up the ladder today fitting anti-pigeon spikes above the new sign for Kemer Bar and Restaurant.