Confessions of a village shopkeeper

During the coronavirus lockdown, one freelance writer decides to volunteer in the local store and gets a curious and sometimes uncomfortable insight into the inner workings of the village...

“With the supermarket shelves emptied, our tiny store and post office has never been busier”

For reasons that will become obvious, the name of the writer and the people mentioned in this article have been changed to preserve privacy.

An hour into my first shift as a volunteer behind the till at the community village shop, and Alistair, who lives just down the road from me, walks in. It’s the day after the official lockdown was announced, and with the supermarket shelves emptied of essentials during that eerie period of panic-buying in late March, our tiny store and post office has never been busier. We’ve even got pasta, though you’d have to fly to the moon to find loo roll or paracetamol, of course.

The first sign of trouble is Alistair is wearing a face mask. It’s just some kind of handkerchief over his mouth, but it makes me wonder what he’s afraid of – catching coronavirus or giving it to someone? “Hi Alistair,” I say cheerily, hopefully hiding any signs of alarm. I don’t know Alistair well – our kids are different ages, and we don’t have a huge amount in common – but we’re always friendly and chat for a few minutes when we see each other. He grabs a basket and starts filling it with milk, tins, biscuits and eggs. There are some fancy, if eye-wateringly expensive, ready meals in the freezer, what I’d call artisan granola and even kefir – who knew what that was until it was a storyline in The Archers – for sale too, but Alistair is clearly huntergathering for basic victuals. I notice that he has taken the last three bags of pasta, in contravention of a blackboard sign stating: “No more than one of any item”. We are only a small shop, and there are lots of elderly people in the village who clearly have a greater need at this time.

“Are you serious about only one of everything?” Alistair asks, with more than a hint of irritation. Brian, who runs the shop (also in a voluntary capacity) and has just popped in to sort out a couple of things, gives him a flinty stare. “Yes, of course,” he replies tersely.

Alistair huffs and puffs and grumpily puts two of the packets back on the shelf. There’s a slightly awkward tension between us as I run the other items through the till. I can’t really think of anything to say. I don’t know him well enough to ask: “Why are you buying all this food? I didn’t know you were a prepper.”

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

Brian watches suspiciously as he leaves the shop. “He’s scared,” he remarks. “He won’t use half the stuff he’s just bought, it’ll just be hoarded.” Left unspoken is the thought that Alistair’s a bit of an idiot. Brian can be like that – I think he thinks a lot of people are idiots.

The shop serves a village of just over 1,000 people. Six or seven years ago, it was going to close because it was no longer a viable commercial concern until Brian – highly organised, clever