Popular Higham Ferrers newsagent making headlines

In the heart of Higham Ferrers, newsagent Vijay Patel has been selling national and local newspapers for almost 41 years.

Now – as Vijay makes headlines himself – he is leaving the job, his business and is finally retiring at the end of the month.

But he will continue to get out of bed at 4.30am just as he has always done since opening the popular Higham Newsagents shop back in 1985, saying that getting up early will always be a way of life.

Then later, he will take a leisurely stroll from his home in Higham Ferrers back to the centre of the town to buy a newspaper from his old shop, but this time as a customer.

“I will be 70 in August, and although I am still fit enough to work, I think it is time to retire. My wife, Bina, also deserves more of my time,” he said.

Bina has helped her husband in the shop over the years, but never on a full-time basis.

“She comes in now and then, more to socialise with the customers,” her husband said.

Amin expelled between 50 000 and 80 000 Asians from the country, giving them just 90 days to pack a single suitcase and leave.

passports, and settled in England, carving out new lives for themselves.

“We were penniless and had nothing,” he recalled.

But within 24 hours of getting off the plane in England, 16-year-old Vijay had found two jobs: full-time work in an industrial laundry and a part-time job in the evenings making commercial paintbrushes.

Then, when the Higham Ferrers newsagent’s shop came up for sale, Vijay and his family, which had been looking for such an opportunity, snapped it up.

It did not take long for Vijay to settle in, and he says that he is sure that his customers “take me as one of their own.”

With his first language being Gujarati, he also found that reading the newspapers that he sold in the shop helped him gain a greater understanding of English. And it was not long before he became a fluent English speaker.

He says that the business is not so much about making money, but being a part of the local community and chatting with customers about the various issues and news of the day.

“Customers love to chat about what is on their mind, and we have conversations about what concerns them, politics, the state of the economy, cost of living…you name it.”

As well as having forged friendships with countless customers, he is also an important person in the lives of the many paperboys and papergirls who got their first jobs delivering newspapers around the town for him.

Said one former paperboy, Christian Parker: “He has given an opportunity to countless people to make money at a young age. I didn’t mind getting up early or in the cold because I was still making money.”

Vijay says that while people’s priorities and lifestyles have changed over the years, “they still want newspapers.”

He will miss the work and the regular contact with the people who are not just customers, but also friends, and is certain that he will see them again around the town.