The impending closure of Old Town Clothing in Holt has sparked more interest than many of my posts.

I have been mildly rebuked on the grounds that high street shops in small county towns are closing every day without anyone paying attention;  but I don’t regard Old Town as any old shop because it has always felt as if it provided a model for a small-scale rural industry, based on high quality design and farming out some of the making to rural outworkers who they now have difficulty finding.  This is quite different to the ubiquitous high street chains which have, I think, contributed to the demise of local shopping, since one can just as easily get standardised goods online.

The French and Italians have paid attention to the benefits of small-scale manufacture, both in terms of providing a greater variety of goods and a better distribution of regional employment. The fact that officialdom has no interest in this issue and is dismissive of it tells one something about our attitude to the economy.