I complained last year that our local Sainsbury’s was doomed – the lease was expiring; the landlord wanted to redevelop – and so it came to pass. It closed on my sister’s 40th birthday, which felt like adding insult to injury. We were tempted to go from celebration breakfast to all-day wake/vigil/protest outside, but the weather was rubbish. Instead, we bid muted goodbyes to a key city-centre amenity, repository of our family history and free, easy parking spot. I’m now condemned to reverse anxiously and ineptly into small spaces – pre-emptive apologies to everyone who gets stuck behind me.
There was a petition, but should I, personally, have tried to save it? My husband thinks so – he’s been urging me to set up a burning-tyre barricade on the roundabout outside for months (his answer to anything requiring protest; they learn this stuff in primary school in France). I tried to distract him by asking whether we could prise the lower-case S off the giant Sainsbury’s sign at the entrance as a souvenir. But the next time we went past, even that was gone.
