ARCHIE's WORLD

Half of my youth was spent "just running a message up to the shops,"
so I am well-qualified to discuss them. It seems a well-established,
social law that the frequency of shop visits increases in inverse
proportion to the distance from house to shop. And, no doubt, it is
also an established, social law that "near-ness" encourages sloppy,
weekly-grocery planning.

Our housing estate had four shops, in a bunch, at the top of our
street. And they were a just the convenient, 100-yard's sprint for a
small boy to run and bring back a family-size tub of not-yet-melted ice
cream.

Two out of the four shops I remember well. They gave the impression of
being "stable" shops: The same owners, same merchandize, same window
displays extending over many years.

The other two shops were unlucky shops, which had seen (with
poltergeist-style relish) a long succession of would-be tycoons come
and go.

Perhaps they were haunted by the ghosts of the ancestors of this former
farmland or perhaps it was only that the good-working people of
Ardrossan were not yet ready for their exotica.

Over the months there came and went a rapid succession of dry
cleaners,iron mongers, electrical shops, one fish &; Chips take-a
-way and --wow--finally, a Chinese restaurant.