Clapton Pond Blog

Farewell Kidsmania

One of my smallest daughter's favourite things is pressing her nose against the glass of the Kidsmania shop opposite the Round Chapel and dreaming. All those fabulous posh frocks! Every so often, usually just before Christmas she's actually got through the door and tried things on. Then, miraculously, a few days later one of those fabulous posh frocks would emerge from a parcel and my smallest daughter would be transformed into a glamorous princess, radiating style and grace.

You might have noticed that those days are soon to end. For the past few weeks Kidsmania has been holding a closing down sale and expects to shut its doors to customers for the final time at the end of this week. It will be a sad occasion for Neeta and Ashok Daryanani, who opened the shop in 1976 when Neeta was pregnant with their son Neil - who's grown up to be part of the family firm too - and the bottom end of Lower Clapton Road was very different. Only Harris Electrical and Danny's Motor Shop survive from that time.

Tesco Unveiled

The blue fence has come down and the shiny new store is on display. It opens for business on Friday morning at eight. Its hours thereafter will be 7.00 am until 11.00 pm seven days a week. There's a Link cash machine on an outside wall, though it's not been switched on yet.

And so the stage is set for a Tesco test case on our doorsteps. Will it destroy small local traders, leaving boarded-up shopfronts all down Lower Clapton Road? Is its arrival inevitably just the next step in the homogenisation of the neighbourhood by large, branded chains, be they supermarkets or betting shops?

Or will the Tesco presence drive up the standards of other local shops and produce more variety as its smaller rivals diversify to survive? At Palm 2, they're now offering free, large bars of Green and Blacks chocolate to customers who spend more than £30. I'm never out of the place these days, though I'll be taking the odd prowl around the Tesco Express too, if only to see what they're offering and at what price. Readers' views and retail experiences are, as ever, very welcome.          

The Boy Who Stole

I've known the boy for years. I've watched him grow from a watchful innocent into a beseeching doorstep hustler and then an opportunist thief. The day he stole my wife's camera from the shelf in our hall was a day I suppose I'd begun to expect; a day when he'd reached a point in his life when his height almost matched mine but his behaviour fell short of any hopes I'd had that being kind to him now and then would help divert him from an adolescence of petty crime and automatic lies.