I hoped to spend cash, not time in queues...

THE pandemic has hit high street shops and I was determined to do my bit and spend local rather than shop online, as has become a habit for many during lockdowns.

Unfortunately, my experience was less than rewarding.

First problem was parking in Huddersfield when the whole world wanted to go to Primark and Sports Direct, never mind taking advantage of the bargain on orange Lucozade six packs at Farmfoods. What can I say? I like orange Lucozade.

The closure of the Market Street multi-storey really hit home. With nowhere to go, convoys of vehicles shuffled round the streets like hopeless lemmings looking for a cliff to jump off. I did more circuits than Lewis Hamilton winning a Grand Prix before abandoning hope to try those out-of-town shopping areas where there was at least somewhere to leave the car.

In the first store, queues were of acceptable length but instead of a line of sales staff waiting to take your money, there were self-service tills that seemed to have malfunction as a default setting. An assistant will be with you shortly, said the message. But they weren’t.

We abandoned the items we wanted to buy and tried another store.

This did not seem to be too crowded until we discovered most of the customers were in a queue as long as a New Year’s Eve conga line. We joined and it extended behind us without any noticeable movement forward. A packed lunch and a flask would have been useful.

Once again we abandoned potential purchases and left, passing the service area and discovering three tills were unmanned.

No parking, serve yourself tills that didn’t work and others left unmanned at the busiest time of the year? We gave up and went home and went back into town at 9.45am on Sunday to get a parking spot and before shops opened. We are nothing if not persistent in helping the good retail fight but why do some stores make it so difficult?