My Home Town

We all see the posts on Facebook and Twitter asking us to shop locally, to keep money in the community and we all click the like button or maybe even share a heart to show we love it. How many of us though put our money where our mouth is, avoid the cheaper retail chains and spend our hard earned cash in the smaller, albeit sometimes slightly more expensive local, owner run, shops?

I for one will be doing exactly what I say I’ll do this year, for our small town, already blitzed from floods six years ago has been hit yet again. The storms over the last few days have once again caused the Bandon River in Co. Cork to flood the town of Bandon.

A majority of our shops are single businesses, run by people who managed to reopen after the last floods, some without insurance, and who were just starting to look forward to the Christmas period when they were flooded out again. Some of the shops will not reopen of course, their owners worn out and disillusioned by the lack of flood relief system that was promised six years ago but is still to materialise. Many though have gamely worked over the weekend so they can reopen in the morning, to show they are not defeated by the floods.

Having lived in the area for 17 years now and having worked in Bandon for some of these I know people in many of the businesses in town, they deserve my support and the support of the community and I hope this year is the busiest, most profitable Christmas ever for them. They deserve it. Without their resilience we would not have a town.