Confessions of a village shopkeeper

For reasons that will become obvious, the name of the writer and the people mentioned in this article have been changed to preserve privacy.

An hour into my first shift as a volunteer behind the till at the community village shop, and Alistair, who lives just down the road from me, walks in. It’s the day after the official lockdown was announced, and with the supermarket shelves emptied of essentials during that eerie period of panic-buying in late March, our tiny store and post office has never been busier. We’ve even got pasta, though you’d have to fly to the moon to find loo roll or paracetamol, of course.

The first sign of trouble is Alistair is wearing a face mask. It’s just some kind of handkerchief over his mouth,