A PENSIONER who is distressed by the decline of her local high street had a bitter grievance against every shopkeeper when they were still in business.
Mary Fisher frequently harks back to when there were lots of small retailers, apparently forgetting she intensely disliked the owners or believed they were crooks.
She said: “The high street used to be all little shops, like our local butcher. Mind you, he was always trying to cheat you. I could see him pressing down on the scales.
“Mrs Burling used to have a wool shop on the parade. That woman was a pain. She could talk the hind legs off a donkey. And from what I heard, she’d probably sleep with it too.
“Yes, it’s been terrible the way the high street has declined. The hardware store closed down years ago. It’s sad, but he did used to water down his paint.
“Now it’s just two huge supermarkets. They’re too big and impersonal, but at least the staff can’t handle the food with dirty fingernails like Mr Webb the fishmonger. He was a filthy bugger.”
Fisher’s granddaughter Lucy said: “From what Nana says, we shouldn’t be protecting the local high street, we should be bulldozing it and building a massive Asda.”
