Call it progress, or the hectic pace of modern life, yet it’s a sad fact that so many of our corner shops are disappearing! Apparently, we’ve been losing around two thousand of them a year, especially since supermarkets began opening smaller versions of their stores right on our doorstep.
Like our equally endangered local post offices and libraries, our traditional corner shops have always been more than just places to buy groceries. Right at the heart of the community, the corner shop was also the place for a friendly chat, catching up with news and gossip and keeping tabs on the vulnerable in the community. If an elderly neighbour failed to pop in for their usual supplies, alarm bells were triggered. For many, living on their own, visiting the corner shop helped to ease loneliness. Above all, in our rapidly changing world, the corner shop was a dependable rock, linking us to our roots and serving whole generations.
Too often we don’t value the mundane, nor realise what we are missing until it’s gone. So it’s great to learn that such a vital part of our heritage is currently being celebrated with an award winning project based here in the Black Country.
“The Corner Shop” is a Black Country Touring and Foursight Theatre partnership with English Heritage, Sandwell Community History and Archives Service, Sandwell Museum Service and Birmingham Archives and Heritage Service. Partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, it is a social history project charting the changing nature of small shops in the Black Country, over the last 60 years.
The project began with a series of training sessions where local people were trained in oral history interviewing and recording skills, to uncover the stories behind our corner shops. Running alongside this was an educational strand, where pupils at Black Country schools forged links with their local communities and shop owners.
More than 30 audio interviews with current and former shop owners and customers were recorded.
The project also led to an innovative promenade theatre production, by Foursight Theatre, where audiences experienced the shops and their stories through live performance.
In October 2009, the show reached Wolverhampton, where a performance was held in a vacant shop, in the city’s Mander Centre. It’s no secret that, in recent times, Wolverhampton has experienced more shop closures than most towns and cities in the country.
So the show had added meaning for Wulfrunians.
Free Exhibition Now well into phase two, the Corner Shop Project has an Exhibition that has been touring the Midlands since May 2010, gathering praise and awards en route.
Earlier this year, the project won a “Best of the West” award at the “Renaissance West Midlands” awards ceremony. And, on11th September, the free exhibition comes to Bilston Town Hall, in Church Street, Bilston.
As the promotional leaflet proclaims, the corner shop is “A British institution and a proud part of our nation’s heritage. This exhibition is about the history of the corner shop; its beginnings, traditions and place at the heart of our communities.” The exhibition is in Bilston Town Hall until 26th September and opening times are: Mon – Fri 9.30am – 5pm.
