Places features

Bob Evans - shop owner

In 2006, The Evening Standard reported that in the previous five years 7,000 family or individually-owned convenience stores in Britain had disappeared.

With this in mind, Black Country Touring launched their biggest project to date – The Corner Shop – a regional programme to document the changing nature of corner shops across the Black Country.

Volunteer researchers, who have been trained in interviewing skills, have been busy collecting stories and memories from local shopkeepers and customers. Corner shops now have a true multicultural flavour across the Black Country, ranging from traditional English to Asian to Polish.

The Corner Shop flyer

Stories and photographs collected by the volunteers will be archived at Sandwell Community History and Archive Service in Smethwick Library.

A regional community-touring exhibition is planned for summer 2009 and the project will have a web presence on the Connecting Histories website to form an ongoing community and and heritage resource.

Bobby Tiwana, Project Co-ordinator, said: "The stories collected so far are rich and varied, highlighting the hard grind of running a small business as well as customer loyalty, and sense of community. The most successful shop owners have a zest for life and openness to adapt and change to new circumstances. There are stories of incident, compassion and humour. There is a shop where customers play charades to communicate what they'd like to purchase due to a lack of common language."

Corner shop in West Bromwich

As part of the project, Black Country Touring and Foursight Theatre have put together a theatrical production based on the stories of local shopkeepers and volunteers.

The production – called The Corner Shop – takes place in a disused shop in West Bromwich just opposite The Public and runs from Friday 26th – Saturday 4th October 2008

The cast includes Bharti Patel (Silver Street) and Vimal Korpal – an up-and-coming actor and former corner shop owner. The production is co-directed by Frances Land and Steve Johnstone who previously collaborated on Apna Ghar (Our Home) in 2006.

Polka - Polish shop in Smethwick

The Corner Shop takes place in a disused shop unit in central West Bromwich, just opposite The Public from 26th September – 4th October 2008 at selected times. Tickets are priced at £6 (£4 concessions). Call the box office on 0121 533 7162.

For more information, visit: www.bctouring.co.uk