Shops R Us ?
What a great shame we’re loosing all of our lovely specialised local shops to the chains and the out of town monster corporates.
I was prompted to mention this feature as it seems to have popped up a few times lately. Firstly my good friend blogged about photographer Stephen Kings’ capture of the old days of Lewis’s Department Store, a jewel of a place that traded in Liverpool for over 150 years. Story here. Lewis’s Store
Then watching Mary Portas in the highly successful series ‘Mary Queen of Shops’, where she tries her hardest to work with the struggling high street stores in order to revamp and revitalise their livelihoods.
Finally in the work of John Londei and the beautifully captured series of photographs of stores that are closing down. see here Shutting Up Shop
I was also thinking about the style and era we are loosing, by seeing this great sign, and typography I spotted yesterday in Beaumaris.
Shop local.
fishinkblog.com 
Hey there, Thanks for the mention and link to my site, very kind of you. That’s a lovely project by John Londei, I hadn’t seen it before. The shopkeepers look so proud and I’m sure each is an expert on their subject. Doubt we can say that’s the case with many of our supermarkets. It is certainly a tough battle to stay alive as a local shop, but hopefully it isn’t too late for those with the fight to be able to survive, get appreciated and flourish.
There are some local successes on that front here in Chorlton, eg “Out of the Blue” fishmongers (http://www.outofthebluefish.com/) but it definitely requires more determination and marketing savvy to have a chance on the high street nowadays. Not everyone can shop local, but lets hope enough people can, to prevent our towns and villages losing their soul.
I loved the Lewis’s Store and have many fond memories myself. I guess a fair few of those shops featured by John Londei are closing just because the owners have reached retirement age and don’t have dependants to pass their business onto. Let’s hope the small shop finds it’s way again.
Think of us in the wilds – Elsdon village shop closed twenty years ago….I have to go 3 miles just for a pint of milk. Mind you, the fish man and the baker come every Thursday, as well as the Ringtons tea van every couple of weeks. So the food comes to us !
I think you’re lucky to have a few guys who deliver, what a lovely idea… we need more of those. .. and not the ones with Tesco on the side either !