A village shop run by volunteers seemed a grand idea, but would it really work? Three years on the small band of volunteers in Redmire and Castle Bolton in Wensleydale have proved resoundingly that yes, it does. What's more, they've won two awards and have had lots of visitors from other villages come to see how it's done.

"Mind you, we've learnt a lot in the last few years," says Florence Peacock, chairman of the shop committee.

The villagers were driven to run their own shop when the shop in Redmire closed because it just wasn't making a profit. At the same time, the post office in nearby Castle Bolton closed, leaving those without cars stranded.

"It's all very well for the bosses in London to say that people should have their pensions paid into banks, but a lot of older people up here have never used banks and can't get to them anyway. They need to be able to get their money when they want it," she adds.

Residents of the two villages got together and saw the only way out was to run their own shop. So they did.

It wasn't quite that simple of course...

There were meetings and questionnaires and more meetings and consultations. They had a lot of help from ViRSA, the Village Retail Shop Association, the parish council and residents. The 160 villagers each gave £10 as a starter, John Brennnan did the electrics, Tom Walters gave them an empty garage to convert.

"We were really grateful for that, because we'd been so desperate we were considering an old coal house," says shop organiser Sue Gall.

"But it all took about six months and that time without a shop and post office made us realise how much it was needed. It's not just the shop and the services, it's somewhere for people to meet and chat and they'd missed that."

The only paid employee is Gill McGregor, who used to work in the old village shop and who's now the postmistress. All the others involved are volunteers and Gill does at least twice as much as she's paid to. Most of the stock comes from the Quality Fare supermarket in Leyburn. "We planned everything as much as we could, but we had no idea how it would work out," says Gill. At first they opened mornings and tea time, stocked the shelves (which came from a library in Lancashire, collected and erected by another volunteer) with £600 worth of goods.

"The night before we opened we were still painting the walls. In the first week we were selling out in the morning and having to dash down to Leyburn for more supplies before tea time, which was no way to carry on," says Sue.

"It took us two hours to cash up on the first night as well, but we learnt. We had to."

Eventually, they re-organised their opening hours and their shopping. Quality Fare now deliver and regular customers put in their orders. But volunteers still have to collect the frozen food and the perishables and Gill often goes to the chemist to collect prescriptions for elderly customers while she's there.

The service here is so personal, that if any of their regulars miss pension day, someone will pop to their homes to make sure they're alright. You don't get that from Tesco.

The shop is tiny but amazingly well-stocked. As well as basic groceries, they sell ice creams, greetings cards, videos of the dale, postcards and offer a dry cleaning service. A list on the wall shows orders and special requests.

The year they opened they won the Yorkshire Rural Community Council's Village Venture Award. Earlier this year, they won the Duke of York's Community Initiative for best practice in community enterprise and leadership, when they had a grand day out to meet the Duke, a good looking chap, they all agreed.

They have inspired similar schemes elsewhere. People have called and visited from all over the country to see how they've done it. Even their mascot - a knitted Postman Bob (after their local postman, nothing to do with that other famous postman) has achieved national fame.

There is a small but steady trickle of customers, all of whom are enthusiastic in their praise of the difference the shop has made. Its future, for now, seems fairly secure, but even non-profit making enterprises have to cover their costs and its survival - as with all village shops - depends on people using it.

While the big supermarket chains divide up the market, making millions in profits, it's good to know that in a converted garage in a Wensleydale village, a little band of volunteers is showing the rest of country just how it's done.

Published: 06/07/2001