Mieka Smiles

Local Matters

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PARENTS scramble for last-minute buys, children pack around Santa's grotto and Slade blares out over the shopping centre speakers.

It's Chriiiiisssstmas! As a teenager in a northern town, I vividly remember those £5 pocket money bus trips to buy gifts.

The high street and shopping centres were a chaotic riot of tinsel and tack, packed with mafting-hot shoppers with woolly hats stuffed into their pockets.

Wow, how things have changed. Now the crowds have thinned to a polite trickle. All the big hitters of the high street have moved out of town. Marksies? Gone. Debenhams? Gone. And Next? Yep, that's gone too. And I know we're not alone.

You can't turn back time and I love the convenience of Amazon Prime as much as the next person but to see the high street die this slow and painful death breaks my heart.