Emotional end for Carlton family business after 122 years: shopkeeper says: ‘I cried my socks off’

The shopkeeper of a 122 year old Nottinghamshire store has shared how customer reactions brought her to tears after she made the difficult decision to close the much-loved family business. Whiten’s News in Westdale Lane, Carlton, is run by the family of the same name since 1902 – but on Saturday April 27 the popular newsagents will close permanently.

Janet Whiten, 77, explained that the “incredibly difficult decision” was largely driven by her desire to care for her husband Barry – who had previously been diagnosed with vascular dementia. “It has been a very, very difficult decision and since I stopped working in the store after Barry’s dementia diagnosis, I have missed it very much,” said Mrs Whiten, who has worked in the store for 52 years.

The shop, which was founded by Barry’s grandfather more than a century ago, was initially located in what Mrs Whiten called a “little wooden hut” before moving to the building where it remains today. “It’s a very different world now than when the store opened. I can’t imagine how many customers have come into the store – I have no idea how many I even served.”

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Ms Whiten said she had become good friends with customers and regarded staff “as if they were family” after working in the store for more than 50 years. When news of the store’s impending closure was shared on Facebook, locals rushed to show their support and reminisce about the store’s fond memories.

“Oh god, I was absolutely overwhelmed and I was sobbing my socks off,” Janet explained. “I’m not on Facebook, but my daughter sent me a bunch of screenshots and I said, ‘Don’t send me anymore, I’ve been blubbering for an hour reading them all.’

“I’m staying out of there on the last day because I’ll just be a blubbering mess. I cry with everyone when they come in with problems, so I can’t be there on the final day.

‘You don’t realize what you mean to people, but it has always been one of those shops where an old lady, if she couldn’t fill out a form, would get help from us. The staff used to call it my advice booth in the back – if someone’s spouse had left them or God knows what else, I would listen to their stories.

Janet, who left the office of bicycle maker Raleigh in 1972 to join her husband’s family shop, explained that her four grandsons had grown up in the shop. “It’s been a way of life, we went there every day, seven days a week, except Christmas Day. It’s a hard life in one respect, but I’ve enjoyed it so it doesn’t seem that way.

‘I am also proud of everyone who worked here. All my old paperboys still come back and see me after all these years. One of them is a Grenadier Guard, another is in the police, and when me and my daughter went to give her a new car, we went to another old paper boy to buy it.’

The retailer explained that it would have been “incredibly difficult” to keep the store running for much longer, citing declining footfall and rising costs – and outlined how she had not sold Easter eggs this year because supermarkets were selling them cheaper than she could. to buy.

“When you get to my age – in a few years I’ll be 80 so I shouldn’t be carrying on anymore,” Janet laughed, before adding: “We’re very proud of it, you don’t think about that. It was all in that moment, but when I read what my daughter and other people have written about the store, it dawns on me how many people cared.”