Hardware store owner closes doors after 60 years

An 85-year-old hardware store owner says he will "miss it horrendously" when he closes the doors of his shop for the final time after nearly 60 years in business.

Meredith's DIY Hardware and Ironmongery has been at the Yate Shopping Centre, near Bristol, since the centre opened back in 1965.

But with changes in the high street and people increasingly shopping online, Patrick Meredith has had to wind down the business and retire "at long last".

"I've been in this trough now for 60 years, I'm going to find it really difficult to get out of it. I can see myself getting up in the morning and coming to work and attempting to get back in the shop," he said.

Meredith said when he first arrived in the area as a young man, the shopping centre was just a "muddy patch".

But he said Yate was "growing", and with all the new houses and young couples moving into the area, his hardware shop was "very, very, very busy".

"There was no competition. There were no B&Qs, there were no Tescos - we had all the business," he said.

"Everybody made everything, people made kitchen cabinets and tables and things. They all came to us for all their DIY. It was absolutely total chaos."

He said over the years, the trade changed, and the family-run business "moved away from the DIY side of it".

"The end of the shop was covered in legs - table legs. We sold hundreds of them," he said.

"And loose screws, which was an absolute nightmare - we spent half our life trying to sort all the screws out.

"But people don't make anything these days."

Six decades on and with a "considerable drop in footfall due to all the competition", the shop is due to close for the final time on Saturday.

Meredith said it has been a "long time, a couple of lifetimes" and at his age it was "definitely the time to do it".

As for his retirement, he said his wife and his five-year-old Jack Russell terrier will let him know what he will "be doing," but he also "might" try to get a job back at the shopping centre.

"I did say to the shopping centre manager that perhaps, when we close the shop, 'do you think there's any chance of me getting a stall down in the square?'," he said.

"It's been good, but I'll miss it horrendously."

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