Monday 29 October 2007 - “It’s Been Emotional”

Firstly, I forgot yesterday to thank the good people of Alderley Edge, particularly the residents of Marlborough Avenue, for their generosity in leaving a fine selection of both eating and cooking apples, Ripe For Scrumping from their green and pleasant land. We will enjoy them this week, as we did after our previous visit three weeks ago.

We had two local gear shops, three if you include the Rohan clothing emporium.
One of these, Millets, has become my first port of call for the routine odds and ends of outdoors gear that occasionally require replacement or replenishment. I have come to accept from the helpful staff that whilst they would love to be able to stock the state of the art gear that the wealthy residents of North Cheshire may be able to afford, that privilege goes to their sister store, Blacks, in Manchester.
So having routinely established that what I really want is (for reasons the staff regret) not stocked by Millets, I revert around the corner to what used to be a fine retail outlet. Sadly, this outlet has in recent years been trading under the Nevisport banner. Now I know Nevisport has an excellent store in Fort William. But I have always struggled in their Altrincham branch, where the staff have seemed keener to keep their heads down on admin tasks than on trying to sell anything from their dingy and poorly stocked surroundings.
For example, they are nominally our local Rab stockist, but in practice they have refused to supply any Rab item without payment in advance - not much use when you want to try something for fit. (But possibly a credit to Rab’s credit control department.)
I concluded long ago that unless it had a hidden value, this outlet was a pointless acquisition for Nevisport and would help to bring them down. So it was no surprise when today I passed the shop to find it boarded up with a simple note in the window: “Thanks to all our customers. It’s been emotional.” It seems Nevisport has gone bust and that the best bits have been sold to someone called Trespass. See Cameron’s TGO blog for more information. Naturally, our local store has been permanently closed. I’m not too dismayed at missing the final sell off of stock, as I’m pretty sure they didn’t have anything I needed!
It’s nice of the staff to thank their customers, and I wish them well for the future despite my own experiences of their apparent lackadaisical attitude.
I just hope that the Millets store survives and that someone in the Blacks hierarchy spots the opportunity to improve its range of stock and take advantage of being the only outdoors store in town.