Corner shop community

I went to the corner shop as usual on a sunday morning to buy the paper and was greeted by an unfamiliar face at the till. He could see my surprise so I asked and he replied, slightly annoyed, 'everyone has been asking that. He's moved on, gone back to Turkey.'

I realised I didn't even know his name. Yet i felt i had got to know the corner shop guy, who always greeted me with a smile and 'how's my friend' (Gustavo). He liked to tease Gustavo for his unkempt hair while stroking his trim styled beard.

When I got home we were both sad that we hadn't had the chance to find out his name, and tell him how much we appreciated his warmth, how he had been a key part of our local community - people you recognise and trust.

Had he been forced to leave by new owners, perhaps there was there some family problem that meant he had to leave London?

A few weeks later I bumped into this Kurdish ex-shop keeper and asked him what he was up to, that we missed him. He told us that he sold the business and had graduated from university. It was great to find out our assumptions were wrong and he was happy.

Searching for images of corner shops I found a blogger who had written about these guys. They used to give her a bottle of wine when it was her birthday. So I guess they were something special.