This has been a familiar term to me for years. Not too long ago we saw the shift from going to the high street to do your shopping, to driving out to industrial estates with huge Supermarkets selling everything under one roof. The convenience can’t be denied.

But I am one for saving what should be saved, so I have been looking at what it is that I no longer enjoy about the high street. Previously I used to enjoy being able to walk to town, go to the post office, maybe a charity shop or two, pick up some stationary and maybe pay in a cheque. Just a small list of jobs could involve a minimum of four premises, with a possible stop in a book shop or other clothing shop. But as times have changed this is no longer an option.

Most post office have now closed in smaller villages and in towns have been assimilated into convenience stores, often the staff looking confused at the most simple request. Most clients now pay online, so the need to ‘pop’ to the bank just isn’t there. And none of us could have escaped Amazon, anything you can want, within a day. Saving you travel time, parking fees and shopping time. That’s got to be a win. In comparison, the delivery fees are cheaper than your time. This is a slightly separate but related issue – the infrastructure of this country. It takes an awfully long time to get anywhere by way of a motor vehicle. Not just due to congestion and idiotic road works (where you have a massive piece of road sectioned off for a tiny piece on the pavement, and no one working on it!), but we don’t seem to have a logical system of traffic lights either. No-one looks at the overall flow of traffic, because surely if people can get where they are going, we can all get on and either spend money or make money. After all, that’s what it’s all about apparently. If people can get to work, the economy grows, this is why I am starting to think its meant to be this way, because some things are so easy to improve.

So it takes an age to drive to your high street if you can’t walk, and you will have to pay for parking if you can find any. We very rarely encounter a free car park here (that’s also where the large shopping estates won, they had free massive car parks). Lots of shopping centers within towns have many empty shops and what you do have doesn’t seem to be anything people want.

But, aside from the problems of cost, need and availability for shops there is another issue. We come to quality and customer service. Both of which I now think are long gone. I have worked in retail, as well as hospitality and commercial offices before going into finance, so I do understand what it takes to do these jobs. Most of my recent disappointing experiences in establishments have been down to the people or the product they are selling. It could well be that I have indeed managed to move somewhere that is feeling more and more like a cross between Hot Fuzz and The League of Gentlemen. I do not expect to be looked up and down when booking an appointment, I do not expect to be told ‘no we don’t sell hydrangeas’ when they are literally right behind me it turns out. And I don’t expect to wait for over five minutes before no-one appears, or served moldy food in the shop down the way. This is only within a few months, but it gives me an idea of what is going wrong. I can now say I won’t be putting my money into my local shops and I would say this is the suicide of the high street, not just the death of. I guess the old saying springs to the mind in these instances “If your face doesn’t fit…” But money is money in my book, and manners and etiquette come for free, so no excuse. There are so many things bothering me about this country at the moment, I feel this may not be the last rant!

(c) K Wicks

In today’s current climate of the housing crisis, it’d hard to imagine that no-one saw it coming. Or at least no-one who would do anything about it. I noticed this trend and pending problem back in 2002, when I luckily was in the position to begin looking for my first home by way of a mortgage. I had a partner (there was no way you do this on your own), we both had family who ‘lent us’ the deposit, then we applied for more from the mortgage company. Ordinarily this would have just been a normal look and buy, but I happened to be working at an Estate Agents at the time. So had already seen the number of houses available becoming less, the prices creeping up and more and more people applying for each house to view, and then the inevitable negotiations. It was heartbreaking watching people get excited about getting a house, then losing it to someone else. It wasn’t nice to watch, and it wasn’t nice to be part of. There was no enjoyment to looking for a house, there were 5 in the end in our price range, in a town of around 40,000 houses back then. So of the 5, the best option was picked – no parking, a garden separated from the house by way of a shared pathway. But it was mine, so I overlooked the issues and weird things about the property because I wanted somewhere to live.

My desire to settle down I feel has always been driven by a turbulent past, I was moved (dragged) around a lot in my youth, around my home town living in various houses, then around the world and the UK. My mother was never settled and we felt it. We moved every year or two and it made me never feel settled. I wanted different, I wanted to be local and for somewhere to feel familiar, for more than a year or two. So getting my first house made me feel secure, it made me feel safe and happy. Yes, I was in debt for it and it wasn’t really mine, but it was in my head, as long as I paid my way. Not a bad trade off I thought. I had picked where I was in the country and I was in control of what I did, it was empowering. I was 22 then, which makes me sad to think many people can’t even think of having their own home, let alone the opportunity of doing it so young, when you really can enjoy it and use it to improve your life.

My brain relaxed in a way it hadn’t before, no less neurotic, just relaxed in the deep. I started to focus on what I wanted to do, what did I want to be, who was I going to be. After a few years of different Monday-Friday jobs, I decided I didn’t want to work for other people anymore, my ambition and motivation seemed to outweigh my managers at this point. So I undertook a series of courses (I happen to have left school early having done NO exams whatsoever), to get trained in finance. I seemed to be good at it and enjoyed the precision. It took the pressure off my future at the same time as giving me one. I was able to grow my business, move to a bigger house, improve as a person, employ a number of other people and contribute to society – you know, what we are trained for…

But you don’t know what life is going to throw at you. I loved my bigger house, it had a lovely garden, great views from the front, it was detached. Everything you want in an old crumbling house. Except where it was. For the first few years it was ok, but then it changed. A church opposite started holding meetings for alcoholics a couple of night a week. The community building just over the way started renting out for children’s birthdays and alcoholics and drug users meetings and hand outs – I really did see a conflict of safety there. And to top it all off, some reckless driver smashed their car into my house while screeching round the corner. The signs were already there to leave. But instead I decided I was in a dead relationship, became single and tried to get my head down and not go out as much.

Then I met my husband, by way of the internet because I really didn’t get out much. And he pointed out it wasn’t really a great place to live if you couldn’t go out. So we put the house on the market and moved into rented. That really is the speed version of that story, it was a stressful few months and very dramatic at the time – we did actually try to sort out the issues without having to move by going through the proper authorities, but this made it worse. So leaving was easier, so I thought. Because I hadn’t really been able to explain to my husband the sense of security I had from having a home. Or properly to myself, I had adapted and didn’t want to go back to how I felt before. But I did.

It was hard to find a rented property initially as well – I had heard all the hype over the years about rental values, lack of availability and issues and did understand, but the reality is so much worse. I also had a dog, so that meant 95% of the properties weren’t available to us. Luckily I did find one that would accept dogs, it did mean relocating areas but I didn’t mind at that point, I was just happy to have somewhere to go, and felt lucky I was in a position to have money available for deposit, rent and all the costs. But that doesn’t account for the mental state someone can go through. Despite having a nice place to live and being able to just about afford the rent for a year, I became very insecure. I needed to be able to think further ahead than this, and I couldn’t anymore. I suddenly felt stunted. I was starkly aware that this wasn’t my house, it was someone else’s.

Not helped by the fact the landlords of said property sent gardeners round at 8.30am on a Sunday to do a garden survey, without informing us. That tipped me over the edge a bit. I knew I could be homeless if I complained, but we did anyway. And then the agent made it worse by coming into the property when we were absent, again without informing us and being completely aware we weren’t there. These two incidents were enough to cause me to become unstable and anxious, reverting back to how and who I used to be. I didn’t like it. And that led to another few years of renting, moving, renting, moving and having the most horrendous experiences with letting and estate agents. Some of that was in Spain, and is a whole different kettle of fish. But the idea of being homeless when you have paid your way, and have done nothing wrong, really upset me. I am quite old school in thought, and liked to believe there is a code of conduct, we understand we are all in this together – but I have been shown in the last few years. We really aren’t.

But I have now finally got back on the housing ladder and am starting to find my feet again, settle down in mind and get back to what I was suppose to be doing. Writing.

(c) MKW Publishing