I went back today to a short row of shops I first wrote about eighteen months ago. Three units are empty now. The barber is still there.
Nothing about that sounds remarkable, and taken one closure at a time it probably was not. A sign comes down. Paper appears inside the windows. Somebody paints over a colour that had been there for years. The next time you pass, you barely register the difference.
Set my old notes against the row now and the change is much larger. There used to be a newsagent, a small café and a shop I cannot remember ever entering. Now there are shutters, letting boards and the barber’s striped pole in exactly the same place.
The barber laughed when I told him he had become the point of continuity. He said that sounded like a threat.
I told him I would come back next year and test the theory.