"As I grew up in the fifties & sixties in Newcastle-under-Lyme there was one delicatessen issuing delightful exotic smells of spiced salami mixed with the aroma of ground coffee. My mother used to wrinkle her nose in distaste as we hurried past on our way to Liptons, one of the first supermarkets to open right in the middle of the high street where Typhoo tea and Camp coffee were popular purchases. Mothers Pride white sliced bread was the norm, Hovis brown bread was considered rather off the wall despite its' marketing campaign down South.

This piece is an echo of those times. I painted it in the early eighties whilst living in Paddington but it recalls a corner shop in my hometown. In the background a row of condemned houses awaits demolition and it is apparent the grocery store is not long for this world. The available goods it contains were then typical of what was on offer in any small shop across the country. In my family items such as ready made frozen dinners were looked at with disapproval by my mother, health conscious, decades ahead of her time. Often on a Saturday morning I would be taken secretly by my dad to the local Wimpy Bar where we both indulged in an illicit hamburger which seemed to us an exotic treat as we sat in its modern interior of warm lighting, Formica topped tables breathing in  the air of convenience Americana!"