Newsagents have been touted as a dying trade. But others consider shops like this one – one of the oldest stores in town – a priceless gem. Here at Barnett Bros, Sanjee Vangarcha has combined smart diversification with ongoing delivery of a very local service. We met her as she opened up early for paper deliveries at number 24.
How did you come to start a business here?
We came from London when the children were small. It was very different from the city, but we loved it. Not only because it was so beautiful, but because it was so welcoming. I know I couldn’t have managed this business without the support of the community.
Why did you keep the name Barnett Bros rather than changing it Sanjee’s?
It’s part of the shop’s history, and so now our history. I hear that way back, when the Barnett brothers ran it, they used to work in the office at the back and people would come in and leave money on the counter for their newspaper and go. I like that. I may not be able to follow the same policy, but I do love this town and the sense of community – and the fact you can’t walk two minutes down the High Street without saying hello to someone you know.
With the downturn in newspaper sales, we have had to diversify. Half the shop now is greeting cards and party products and confectionery, and we also act as agents for a Dry Cleaners. Some people call it the TARDIS, because the shop goes back so far and offers so many different lines. The future feels a little unknown, but there’s a lot of support for independents here, and I sense that many locals pick up a paper to support us, not because they can’t find the news anywhere else. I think lockdown underlined the value of shops in the town. So many of us were taking calls and delivering to people who couldn’t get out – we went out on foot, by car, by bike. I was delivering things other than papers, too. Perhaps popping to the Co-op to pick up supplies for customers who couldn’t leave the house and dropping them off with their paper.
I am up at 5am and in the shop from 6.30am and I still get calls if someone has forgotten a greetings card. I choose one and pop it in with their newspaper so they have it the same morning. We still deliver at least 300 papers a day.
We need the younger generation to realise the importance of this sort of community – of shopping local. My own children do, even now they live in London, because they have seen why it matters to families like ours and the customers we serve. They know they’d lose out – their generation and the next one – if shops like this one disappeared.
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