I' m ok in towns as long as I can get out of doors and get to fresh air and quiet places, but because of my mental health issues I try to challenge that, because I don't t want to get any worse if you know what I mean? My town is quite small and quiet and for a while I kept to it, but now I try to push myself to go to busier places so I get used to them, and also for a change of scene. Saying that the town's s are all quite small around here and you can always see the hills so that helps!I' m not working just now, but I hope if I keep doing things like this I will be able to cope with being back in a busy environment. I would like a job working out of doors though, that would be perfect I couldn't live in a big town or a city though, I need to have countryside and peace and quiet nearby!

I can't see that happening. There's still a lot of people who love going shopping.

As for shops closing down, I think that's as much to do with the Hyper-stores selling everything and putting the smaller stores out of business. I used to work for a family-run garden centre and they lost business because places like Asda etc., were stocking cheaper plants and the like. Nothing to do with online shopping back then.

Don't think so - just a weird new shoe fetish...

Anyways, back on topic - do we think Diane will get banged up for chucking a brick through Chrissie's window tonight or will that nice PC Swirling let her off with a slap on the wrist?

That's a good idea. What kind of thing would you like to do?

BiB : Yes indeed, but how much will they still love it when their shopping precinct contains no major department stores? BHS gone, M&S heading that way, Next's profits collapsing and they're talking about a "difficult time next year". Debenhams also struggling. The writing's on the wall imo. Once the big names have gone how long do you think the likes of Primark, Matalan etc will keep their prices low?

As for the hyperstores - yes, they'll always be there because they have pretty much everything under one roof, but do we all want to be dressed by George at Asda or Tu at Sainsbury's?

Same! I used to go to Manchester often to visit family and while it was nice as a change, I was always very glad to be able to leave at the end of the day and swap the packed motorway for fields and hills of sheep! I could not live the city life for anything.


I blame the big hyper stores and supermarkets for driving small shops out. All the big names like M&S, Debenhams, Argos, Next etc in the retail parks on the outside of places, little one man band shops have no chance because their one small shop not part of a chain of 300 + the length and breadth of the country. If one of those stores doesn't sell anything for a day they've got another 299 to back them up, the small high street shop has nothing. The huge supermarkets are even worse, selling clothes and household stuff so there's no need to go to the hardware shops and proper clothes shops. Supermarkets should be for food items only.

I would love to be a postie! Their jobs don't t come up often locally though I would like to be a writer too, but that would have to be part time. I used to think I wanted to be a smallholder until I helped a friend on her smallholdingGood grief that's s a 24/ 7 job I' ve always worked in the tourist trade but it can be very full on, so I need to get away from that, it's s too stressful.

Yeah, U feel the same. When I was young I lived in Glasgow but honestly I couldn't t do that now. I think you go through a phase in your late teens when you're re not really ' fully formed' and you can experiment a bit but when I left I was only away from it a few months before it began to feel a bit ' foreign' to me

As for the big chain stores totally agree. We had Tesco come in and once they do it's s the thin end of the wedge and the local businesses ho down the tubes. I remember going to Kirkwall on the Isle of Orkney, and being shocked to see even it had a Tesco They seem to go everywhere now whereas before they kept to big towns!

They' all be in Emmerdale before we know it

You see that concerns me. Now that we're ve lost most of our industries and the farms don't t hire people anymore, around here, retail is one of the last big employers ( and to be fair to them Tesco absorbed a lot of the job losses from our local mills closing). Even if it is part time and low wages, it's s still people working. When these jobs have gone, where will the money come from? We'll become even more of a commuter area than we already are!

Right now I'M m going to try to steer this back to ED:
Should David and Sharma's s have an online presence?
Should we hear Moira complaining about her terms with some mass online retailer or supermarket? Actually the supermarket one would be fair enough... they could do that.
Should a Tesco Metro spring up at Demdyke and put David's s strange little part farm shop/ part bistroi/ part Spar arrangement out of business?

Posties are dead men's shoes jobs around here, no chance, all wheels within wheels. If someone asked me when I was little what I wanted to be when I was older I didn't have a clue. If someone asked me now, I still wouldn't and if someone asks me in thirty years or more I still won't.


I have never lived anywhere but where I am, the quiet steady pace of life gets into your system and the hustle and bustle of city living is an alien concept. I could never cope with it.

That'll be David's shop gone then, his prices will never compete

It does indeed, Collie. As for Postie's, I think you have to kill someone round here too

David' s shop is still very weird to me, it seems to be ' all things to all men's not like the wee Co ops, Nisas and Spars that small villages up here often have ( if they have one). Then again ,I guess Emmerdale is a touristy place so his sort of stuff goes down well with visitors looking for gifts and treats.I would imagine that his prices would be very expensive and local would go to Hotten for the big shop unfortunately. Although he probably does 2 for 1 on that huge display of McCain' s chips...

He probably lost half his customers more than likely teenage boys who only use to come in to gawp at Alicia, hence the need to find a new clientele

Does Tracey attract a !ore sophisticated clientele?

I would think the sort of beings Tracy attracts are ones that would get any food establishment shut down pronto tonto