My favourite shop when I was little was the ironmongers on Thompson Lane. He sold paraffin for lamps, screws and nails of all shapes and sizes, fuse wire, door locks, gates, bolts, inner tyres for bicycles, hammers, saws, planes, clamps, vices, door bells, electrical wire, insulating tape, WD40, oil cans, and much, much more.

The smell was wonderful. The shelves made it seem like an Aladdin's Cave. It was one of the placed I would go with my dad when he was doing a job at home and had run out of something or other. More often than not, he would go home with more than he went in for, but it was all useful stuff.

Now everyone goes to B&Q, wandering round the ill-signed aisles, listening to musak and feeling the life drain out of their bones.

I would open up an ironmongers and stock anything and everything. Even if nobody bought, they could still come in and soak up the oily, paraffin-y, metal-y loveliness.