Newcastle: A City Born to Shop

Shopping in Newcastle? Well surely there’s not much to say about that... My sentiments exactly until I started writing this book! There’s our market heritage to think about, local big brand successes, shopping rituals and all manner of shopping habits we don’t even realise we have - the amount of times I’ve heard `oh I don’t have any memories of shopping…’ only to be regaled a few moments later with heartfelt tales of first trips to Fenwick’s Christmas window or how mothers sent their children to the `steal works’ with their divvy number. Shopping is such a part of the fabric of our lives we often don’t realise the role it plays and how it has subtly changed over the years. As a small French man supposedly once said, the Brits are a `nation of shopkeepers’ and certainly as a nation we do love to shop. But did you know that Newcastle was the birthplace of some shopping practices we take for granted? Have you ever thought how many parts of the city are named after its markets? It may be such a part of our psyche we don’t even realise that we Geordies are shopping addicts! So grab a cuppa (did the Rington’s man deliver your teabags maybe?) put your feet up (don’t tell me that’s a Caller’s sofa?!) and let me take you on a trip down memory lane…