MAGIC INGREDIENT OF A SUCCESSFUL HIGH STREET
DEEP in the heart of west Wales lies a gorgeous little market town with a high street that refuses to follow the national trend.
It is, of course, Narberth, a bustling town which has gained quite a reputation for having perhaps the most thriving, if not colourful, high street in Wales.
Lockdown in Wales might be easing, yet in this Pembrokeshire town, you won’t find any queues for a Greggs pasty or cars lined up in a Costa drivethru or even shoppers lined up outside a supermarket. Because there are none.
But on an unseasonably grey June day, the same day Wales’s First Minister announced his latest plans to reopen shops and tourism, it’s not the multicoloured Edwardian and Georgian buildings that grab your attention first.
It’s a giant brashly-coloured rainbow, painted with a flourish on the side of the old Narberth School. It is the work of the “Rainbow Fairy” and she has signed it with a simple message: “Keep safe.”
Sitting atop her pastelblue bike, a wicker basket clipped on to the wide curved handlebars and her blonde hair streaming behind her, the Rainbow Fairy – or Diana Brook – has become a familiar sight in Narberth.
Almost from the beginning of lockdown, Diana, a teacher and artist, has spread that simple message to every single street in the town. There’s hardly a window left in Narberth without a little pastel rainbow in the corner and tiny hearts beneath.
“It started on the very first time we came out and clapped and I drew a rainbow on my window and I thought it would be nice if everybody on the street had one,” said Diana at her home on St James Street.
“My ambition was to have the whole of St James Street with one, but then people came up to me and asked if they could buy a rainbow, and I said you don’t buy them, I just paint them on your window.”
What started out as a simple idea grew into a project that now has its own Facebook page and has raised nearly £5,000 for Leukaemia Research.
In less than a month, Diana had covered 102km on foot and had blisters on her feet.
“In the morning I had to plot a route with a map and come up with a plan because I was doing so much walking,” she said. “One day, I remembered I had a bike in the shed so I got that out and started going out on my bike.
“I’ve gone to every single street without exception in Narberth.”
The Rainbow Fairy perhaps captures one of the reasons why Narberth has managed to buck the trend of dying high streets witnessed elsewhere in Wales. There is a sense of community and a pride in their town that runs deeper than acrylic paint on the windows.
Diana said: “I’ve been to houses with people who haven’t seen anyone and I speak to them through the window. I have 15 minutes talking to someone who hasn’t seen anyone else for days and days, and that’s quite humbling.
“It’s been very levelling that wherever I’ve gone, whether it’s the poshest house or the smallest one in Narberth, everyone has been really welcoming and really positive. They’ve really bought into it, and I’m so proud.”
The fiercely independent Narberth high street was voted the best place to live in Wales earlier this year and in 2018 it was shortlisted for the best high street in Wales.
Katy Howells, who owns a lingerie shop at the bottom of the town, thinks its success is down to the high-end flavour to many of the shops and the personal service they offer.
Taking a break from sorting out boxes of stock and hanging delicate underwear on rails, Katy is excited to finally be allowed to reopen the doors to her shop, Pretty Lovely.
“The biggest thing is we’re mostly women and we all communicate with each other,” she said. “Everybody works together to keep the town looking good.
“We are competitive – we are all competing for the same pound – but we also know we all need each other too.
“You are only as good as the town you’re in, that’s what I always say.”
She thinks people will be slow to gain the confidence to return but is desperate for them to come back sooner rather than later. She’s been trading in Narberth for 11 years and knows tourists are central to the town’s success.
She doesn’t fear a second spike either. “It’s either Covid or bankruptcy,” she said. “It’s not really a choice.”
Just two doors up is the Golden Sheaf Gallery. Katy’s sister, Anna Jones, is the manager.
Anna wanders down to talk with Katy and admits lockdown had been “a worrying time”. She has been busy painting the shop ready for reopening and still has paint on her jeans.
She is worried about how many customers will come through the door when they reopen.
Anna said: “The shop is designed to allow people to browse and that’s part of the attraction. We’ve put in place measures to make it safe but we don’t know what that’s going to look like. Hopefully it will give people confidence to come back.”
She puts Narberth’s appeal down to the “beautiful” independent shops.
“The town is beautiful and historic too and it’s well-known for its food,” she said.
But while it all might look beautiful, there are underlying problems which threaten the very core of Narberth. A few
shop s have closed over the past 12 months and their empty windows are a stark contrast to the stylish fronts.
It is a reminder that the high street is a dog-eatdog world and coronavirus has pushed some, already teetering, to breaking point.
“I know at least five shops who would close if things don’t pick up,” said Katy. “The challenge is getting enough people through the door with this social distancing. Three people at the time just isn’t very viable.”
While most businesses are enjoying a rates holiday, it’s when they are reintroduced next year that some could really suffer, said Katy, especially if summer trade is poor.
“We’ll hang on until next June,” she said, but after that she’s not so sure.
Opposite her shop, on the other side of the road is the former Barclays bank.
The coronavirus pandemic might have a silver lining, in the form of new arrivals from the bigger cities. Jamie Barnett from FBM Estate Agents said they have had to bring furloughed staff back because May and June had been busy. Interest in properties has never been greater, he said.
“I think it’s a combination of pent-up frustration and a lot of interest from people coming from outside the area,” Jamie said over the phone. “We’ve had to set up video and virtual tours to meet that need and what I’ve found is a lot of people have realised they can work from home now.”
Narberth offers many of the comforts available in the city, with some great coffee and cake on offer. People travel from miles around to get their hands on a myriad of cheeses and cured meats from Spanish deli, Ultracomida.
Yet it comes without the crowds and the commuting. The pace of life is slower and the people are nicer. Indeed, walking down the street 14 weeks into lockdown, there is not a face mask in sight. While people are respectful of the two-metre rule, there is an easy chat as people skirt round each other on the pavement rather than frigid silence.
Jamie added: “In June this year we’re on track to sell more properties than we did in June last year, which you wouldn’t expect with the offices closed.
“It’s been like a bubble here in Pembrokeshire. We’ve had so many people ask for viewings, it’s like nothing is going on.”
That interest has extended beyond Narberth and towards the outskirts of nearby villages and most properties are at the higher end of the market – £300,000 or more. Top of the want list is outside space and good broadband.
Jamie thinks people are attracted by the sense of community and the fact that everybody supports everybody else. Nowhere is this more evident than at Wisebuys, a traditional greengrocer halfway up the high street.
A family business owned by the three Ryan brothers, Wisebuys has found itself thrust into the centre of the community during the pandemic.
Owner Anthony Ryan said the early days of lockdown had been “chaos”.
“The phone was ringing off the hook, we were running out of stock and we had hundreds and hundreds of people wanting deliveries to their houses,” he recalled.
His three daughters, Bianca, Lacey and Amy all work alongside him in the shop and his wife manages the delivery orders.
Today, they have an efficient system set up in the shop, with shelves from floor to ceiling stuffed full of everything and anything.
A hand sanitiser is set up on a small table at the doorway and only three people can enter the shop at any one time. The girls are quick to smile and wave people in, reassuring any customer who might be nervous to venture inside.
Bluestone Holiday Park
buys all its fresh produce from Wisebuys and so when they closed, £15,000 income disappeared overnight. But thanks to Anthony’s hard work to set up a delivery business, he has weathered the storm quite well.
“We’ve had hundreds of orders and have been delivering since day one,” Anthony said. “We even had one lady in Haverfordwest, which we don’t usually deliver to, but she has cancer and can’t come to the shop. So we do a run to Haverfordwest every week just for her. That’s part of your job, to care for local people.”
Their attention to detail has not gone unnoticed and on a board behind the tills, handwritten thankyou notes are pinned with pride.
Anthony said: “We have a great chamber of trade, we all know each other and we have regular meetings to keep everything well run,” he added.
It’s been so busy they have recently shut the shop on Mondays. “We were working six til six every day and the girls were absolutely wornout,” said Anthony.
He has been in business for nearly 27 years but is faced with a brand-new predicament. He usually orders an extra £50,000 worth of stock for Christmas, but he is worried about the possibility of a second peak in the late autumn.
“What do I do?” he asked. “Do I go all out or do I err on the side of caution?”
On the corner of Market Square, butcher Dave Townsend sees pretty much every coming and going in the town. The manager of Andrew Rees & Sons Butchers, Dave is a familiar face and what he doesn’t know about Narberth isn’t worth knowing.
Dave is used to long hours and 12-hour days are nothing new. But during lockdown, he’s found himself rising earlier and earlier in the mornings. It hasn’t been unheard of him getting to the shop at 5am.
“We’ve been selling buckets and buckets of barbecue meat,” he said from behind the pristine counter. The shop may look small, but upstairs there is a team of skilled butchers at work. They can hardly keep up with demand.
“We’ve seen a big jump in customers,” Dave said, adding that deliveries have been a big part of that. Their hope now is that they keep some of them as people start to resume their normal shopping habits at the bigger stores.
People come to Andrew Rees not just for the meat, but for a service which genuinely cares for each and every customer. Dave knows most of his customers by name and everyone is treated like an old friend. As he parcels up juicy plump steaks, he asks after families, pets and jobs.
“We’re hoping 10%-20% of our new customers stay with us,” Dave said. “Things have tailed off now as people go back to work and use the supermarkets more. What we would usually get this time of year is all the caravaners and campers, but we are missing them now.”
At Number Six The High Street, a handyman is applying the final coat of white gloss to the wooden door frame. Owner Jenny Thomas has had her shop for 36 years and has watched Narberth grow into what it has become today.
The allure of Narberth is in the range of independent shops, she said. “There are no big names here and we all try really hard to keep our shops tidy and presentable. People do come from Cardiff just for a day trip because they can get everything they want – there is good coffee, there are nice restaurants and some interesting places to browse.”
Narberth will survive the coronavirus and the crippling impact of the lockdown because it is more than simply a pretty town.
It is bound together by community spirit and takes pride in what it has to offer.
It’s not just a painted rainbow in their windows that everyone has in common, but a drive to keep the Narberth magic alive.