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Maurice Wood and Tom Molloy at the shop. |
After three generations, butcher’s shop faces the chop
A BUTCHER’S shop that has been serving steaks, bangers and the occasional pheasant for three generations may be forced to close unless someone can be found to take it over.
E Wood, in Liverpool Road, Barnsbury, opened in 1908, on a site where there had been a butcher’s shop since 1840.
Maurice Wood, 66, who inherited the shop from his father, is now hoping to retire. “I started working with my father in the 1950s and I have worked here ever since,” he said. “The shop has been in the family for three generations but I don’t have any sons to take it over.”
Mr Wood has seen many changes to his stretch of Liverpool Road since the 1950s. Once a working class area, it is now home to lawyers. Independent shops have closed, forced out by competition from supermarkets.
Tom Molloy, 64, who has worked with Mr Wood in the shop for 12 years, is to retire next week. He said: “My family want me to stop, and it is not the sort of job you can cut down to just a couple of days a week.”
Mr Molloy had his own butcher’s shop in the West End for 27 years before coming to work with Mr Wood. He said: “Unfortunately there aren’t many young people interested in butchery and it takes five years to train a butcher in a shop. Butchers as a whole have failed themselves. They have failed to entice young people into the trade financially.”
But there is more to the job than serving up a nice piece of fillet. “Dealing with people in the community is a bit like counselling,” he said. “Some of the elderly people who come in here haven’t spoken to anyone all week. They love to have a chat, even if it’s just for a short while. All that goes with supermarkets.”
Customer Vera Instance, 75, still travels to the Barnsbury shop despite moving to Kent last year. “This is the last of the original old shops of Islington,” she said. “All the ones along Upper Street have gone now and there is nothing up Chapel Market. It is the best butcher’s shop in London and it would be sad if it goes.” |
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