• FOR many years there’s been the Paper Shop on Southampton Row, almost opposite the end of Great Russell Street (where the southbound bus stop has been for generations, until it was got rid of last year – but that’s another matter…).

The same family have been running it for about 25 years now. But they’ve finally given up, and the shop closed last week.

Continuing rent increases are a lot to do with it; and whoever owns that block seems to prefer a row of five ever-changing kebab shops / fast-food joints / coffee shops etc to now become a row of six such places, rather than maintaining at least one shop that provides a local service. And presumably the loss of the bus stop has been a contributing factor to decreasing viability.

The people there have been part of the local scene for a long time. Besides selling Oyster top-ups and books of stamps, foreign newspapers, tourist bits and pieces and so on, they have also been a really helpful part of the local infrastructure.

They’ve always been happy to put newspapers and magazines aside for people when they’re away, and have ordered in foreign magazines that people have wanted, and sourced bits of stationery when they haven’t stocked exactly what you want.

And they’ve been trusted by locals who don’t have their own technology and have needed to pay for something online to help them with that sort of thing. And local campaigners have been grateful for their photocopier.

They’ve been coming in to open up before many of us are awake, and stayed open into the evening too. And they remember customers and their interests even after the customer has died.

So it’s the end of an era for a much-appreciated part of the community in Blooms­bury; and yet another sign of the way that ordinary people and ordinary businesses – and the sense of community they engender – are being driven out of central London.

In the last days they were open there was a stream of local people expressing regret at their departure, and wishing them well.

It’s another nail in the coffin of the old “Bloomsbury village”.

ALBERT BEALE
Little Russell Street, WC1