Cornershop

It pains me to admit anything in common with Margaret Thatcher, but like the former Prime Minister I am the child of shopkeepers. And this is where I grew up, above what is now a Costcutters. In its time, it was ‘Maid Marian’. My little corner shop of the world.
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My parents stopped in this very lay-by in 1978 to buy sandwiches on their way from Wolverhampton to Wales. They were going on holiday. But the shop they walked into that day would become their place of work – and a place to live and raise their children.
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The next year they bought ‘Maid Marian’ in the sleepy market town of Newport in Shropshire. Going back there reminds me how quaint Newport is – like a Christmas card of a snowball fight in an Edwardian town.
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Me and my sisters went to school over the road. Like, literally over the road. My parents would watch us through the window that overlooked the playground at breaktime. Our friends would buy sweets after school; the local policeman was a regular and would take us out in his police car. My dad would slip the local priest a bottle of whiskey every now and then.
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It wasn’t all sweetness and light. We were the “darkies’ shop”, after all. It was the 1980s. They set fire to our bins, threw eggs at our windows. But my parents just cleaned it up and kept on going. For 10 years, ‘Maid Marian’ was our home and their convenience store. The customer was always right, even if they were from the far right.
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It’s funny seeing it now, so much bigger in my memory. Like Thatcher, I left with a wistful look out the car window and a tear in my eye.