The Chandler family took over the Spar Shop in Pateley Bridge in 2016 and as 2021 approaches, they hope to put a year of floods and pandemic behind them. Lee Chandler tells their story for the Stray Ferret.
On Valentine’s Day, people were buying wine and chocolates for a romantic night in, but the following morning Storm Dennis hammered the UK and Nidderdale.
Over three days, we went from a relatively quiet start to 2020, into the teeth of gales, deep waters and floods.
As the River Nidd rose to its highest recorded levels and shops and businesses in Pateley Bridge were flooded, who could have known this was just the precursor of worse to come?
Back in February, many members of the community pulled together to save the High Street – among them, James Clarkson, Hillary and Roger Jefferson (even though Roger was recovering from heart surgery), County Councillor Stan Lumley, Aaron Dunn, Chris Hawkesworth and many more.
Flooding in Pateley Bridge at the beginning of the year. Photo by Sharon Clarkson
Just as we completed the clean-up and, like the town’s other retailers, started putting out the stock for Mother’s Day and Easter, we were back in crisis.
A virus that only medical experts and scientists had heard of came sweeping across the world. Nobody was safe.
While Nidderdale has not suffered the same level of infections and deaths as other parts of the Harrogate district, the lockdowns from March to June and November to early December temporarily closed the majority of businesses in the town.
However, with people isolating in their homes in Nidderdale and the Washburn Valley, we were among the essential retailers allowed to remain open and found our shop transformed into a kind of distribution hub.
Countless boxes and bags containing food and drink, prescriptions, pet supplies, books and DVDs were assembled for delivery by an army of more than 60 volunteers coordinated by Nidderdale Plus with fabulous assistance from the Rev Darryl Hall.
More than 90 deliveries went out on some days – both near and far, including urgent supplies that went up Greenhow Hill by bicycle with trailer ridden by Heather Tuffs, an instructor from Bewerley Park Outdoor Learning Centre – itself in lockdown.
We also had the ‘buddy scheme’ checking on the vulnerable and set up a food bank donation point which remains to this day. It is run by Bewerley Park and Nidderdale Plus.
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Staff at Spar and other shops that remained open worked extremely long hours, in a collaborative community effort – that also saw us, later in the year, clubbing together to support the town’s Christmas lights appeal.
With our late-night Christmas shopping event another casualty of covid-19, the extended lights have brought us some cheer and we will have them for years to come.
In among all this, we took over the local bakery just across the road, which had closed before the first lockdown – some might call us gluttons for punishment!
It has been a challenging year, but we kept our heads above water, maintained our sense of humour and hope to come out of it stronger.
