After 66 years, butcher Pat is reluctantly retiring at 85
BRITAIN’S longest-serving butcher is hanging up her cleaver for good today at the age of 85.
Pat Jenkins has been selling prime cuts to the local community for 66 years – during which time she has seen off decimalisation and the mad cow disease crisis.
But the growing trend of veganism and vegetarianism, coupled with the demise of local high streets, have caused her profits to plunge by a third over the past decade.
And with the 10-year lease on her shop up for renewal she has reluctantly decided to call it a day.
Pat said: “I never would have thought that when I first started working here all those years ago I would still be doing it well into my 80s. I have never thought about
‘I am already looking at situations vacant to see if there is something else I can do’
retiring and I don’t want to retire just yet but the timing makes sense. I don’t think I can still do it at 95.
“I will be bored out of my head and I am already looking at situations vacant to see if there is something else I can do.”
Pat began working in Mason’s Butchers in the Pokesdown district of Bournemouth in 1958 – when the shop was run by her dad Albert Musselwhite.
He had taken it over from a Mr Mason in 1945 and – because everyone knew it as Mason’s – he decided to keep the name.
The retailer used to be one of 11 independent butchers on a three-mile stretch of Christchurch Road in the coastal town but it is now the last one standing. In 1973, when Albert died, it was passed to his daughter, who learnt everything she knows on the job.
In 1981, Pat’s son Andrew joined the firm and still works there. Her grandson Fraser has been known to do stints behind the counter, too.
But Pat and Andrew are the only employees of the shop, which at its peak hired five. And Andrew, who is 60, cannot see a future in the business – and has retrained as a gas engineer.
Pat said: “The business has changed a lot over the years.
“Years ago meat was the thing to have. Everyone had their meat and two veg with every meal and had roasts twice a week. But people have gone off meat – it is not in vogue at the moment.
“It has had some bad publicity and people now think it is not good for you or good for the planet.” Mason’s is far from being the only casualty. In 1990 there were 15,000 independent butcher shops in the UK. By 2021 there were just 5,490, according to the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board – one for every eight population centres.
Pat said: “Veganism and vegetarianism is the hot topic with younger people.
“It seems that each generation coming up is less meat-orientated.
“But we have regular customers who have kept us going.”
She also said the inexorable rise of supermarkets had led to a decline in customers.
“There is nothing left on the high street,” she observed.
“There used to be butchers and greengrocers and fishmongers, now it’s just estate agents and beauty salons.”