The Welney Website

"What does our village shop offer? Well, in practical terms a shop that caters for most of our basic needs. Fresh milk, bread, butter, ham, sausages, bacon and eggs, salad and vegetables, tinned and frozen food, sweets and biscuits and food for the cat and dog, greetings cards, sauces and tissues, washing lines and needles and cotton, an off licence, bottled gas and newpapers and magazines (delivered if you wish) and headache pills and bananas and lemon and garlic; mobile fish and meat salesmen visit once a week, and most of the needs of fishermen are met from rods, wellies, nets and bait. All that and a post office for stamps and pensions, parcels and licences and almost all your needs in paying bills. But there is a good deal more.

There is Pete travelling to stock the shop and buy fresh vegetables and fruit, as well driving miles in the morning to deliver newspapers. And there is Wendy, there behind the counter from six-thirty in the morning until six in the evening.  Wendy knows everyone, helps everyone and is one of the social centres for the entire village. Think about it. Wendy is really the only daily point of information for all of us.  The Newsletter can give you information in advance but it isn't there on a day to day basis. Wendy will pass on messages, tell you the date of any event in the village and whether the Friendship bus is full for its next outing. Wendy will tell delivering tradesmen where to find you and will take local adverts free on her counter. She will tell you how deep the wash road is flooded and who has been birthed, married or died, or indeed taken to hospital and may welcome a visit. In a discreet way she is a central point of all village information.

This article is........a reminder of what we gain from having a village shop and asking you what the village would be like without it. Perhaps you treat it as a place for fresh milk and veg, or somewhere for that odd thing you want which isn't worth the bother or expense of driving to a supermarket. But the point is that when you want it, it is there. The shop is part of the village - you expect it to be that way and Wendy treats it that way. She makes up orders for those who can't get to the shop and she and Pete deliver them. She advertises village events, activities and things for sale, she makes up fruit baskets for local raffles and for special celebrations; she chats without gossiping and does far more than open a shop and serve from the counter. All customers from children to pensioners - and everyone in between - are given courtesy and time. Some people think too much time, as they wait in a queue, but they usually change their minds when their turn comes and they are able to shop in a relaxed way with no pressures and a good deal of help.

Think what Welney would be without a shop and post office and a centre like this."