It was 25 years ago when the first Aldi opened in Stechford, Birmingham. I met, quite by chance, the grandson of Stechford’s original grocer. The family was put out of the shopkeeping business not by the German discount superstore but by their own upward mobility.
Ian Blakeman, 49, was a well-known prison governor; he’s now at the National Offender Management Service. “My mother would never drink Coke because they stored vinegar in the bottles and she once took a mouthful by accident,” he told me, as we waited on a train platform.
Blakeman is ambivalent about the discounters. “Food poverty is the real challenge, isn’t it? On the one hand, you now have proper, affordable food. On the other, when my grandfather and father were running the store, people would have known them and talked to them. They would have known their supplier. It’s great having cheap food in big supermarkets but not if it means that farmers can’t afford to produce milk.”
A taxi driver, who declined to give his name, had given up being a shopkeeper in Stechford a bit more recently, and had more cause to blame modern supermarkets. “In the 80s, I had a grocer’s shop. It was hard work, not much profit. These little stores can’t compete, now. But I’m glad I gave it up. You’re better off with a vehicle, you’re your own boss.”
If Blakeman – along with many of us – is ambivalent about Aldi, that’s nothing on how Aldi feels about us. They certainly wanted to mark their UK birthday, making a big fanfare about it, but they became extremely reticent about anyone actually visiting the first store.
Initially, they didn’t know which one it was; 24 hours later, it was definitely Stechford, but I couldn’t speak to the staff. Two days after that, they couldn’t decide whether I could talk to shoppers; the person who could decide was in a meeting, then at lunch, then they’d gone home, then they’d gone on a trip. “Clearance” would be impossible at this stage.
Hang on, I thought, I don’t need clearance to talk to people. Who do they think they are, bloody Cobra? Further investigation revealed what the professionals and the internet couldn’t, that Stechford is closed, and has been for months. While the word “refurbishment” is bandied about, it looks like the emptiest building in the Midlands. Not to be foxed, I found others – Bordesley Green, Sparkbrook, Newtown.
Laura, 23, said outside the Bordesley Green store: “It’s the value – to do my main, fortnightly shop, I’d never go anywhere else. The only problem is sometimes with shelf life. I live on my own so I can’t get through things fast. I have to check everything really carefully. It takes me ages to do my shop.” Hannah, 18, beside her, nods. “It does take her absolutely ages.” Tony, 55, said. “Everybody comes here. Why would you go anywhere else?”
The offering is partly normal groceries, partly surreal hardware: Aldi is exactly where you’d go if you wanted a miniature broom with bristles made of nails, or an orange silicone cake mould in the shape of a European landmark. A guy stacking shelves (mindful that I wasn’t supposed to speak to him, I will simply say that he was incredibly tall and slim, with a shock of blond hair – or was he?) told me about a recent meat heist: someone came in the front doors, scooped up all the topside they could fit in a holdall, and disappeared out the fire escape to a waiting car. He smiled, as if to say: you can’t really legislate for people who bring a getaway car to steal stewing beef.
In Sparkbrook, I found myself in lockstep with an undercover store detective. I was following him to see if he would chat to me; he was following me to see if I might steal something. “Back in the day,” he said, “shoplifters would be hesitant. You’d catch them doing something, and they’d back away, they’d be ashamed, they wouldn’t want you to shout about it. Now, they’re blatant. They’re saying, ‘times are hard. If you need to call the police, call the police. But otherwise, let me go. I’ve got to get to Asda’. And times are hard. I’ve still got to do my job, but I know that.”
It is a killer constellation for the people who work here: hard times, some shoppers legitimately scrutinising sell-by dates, others maybe lingering over the sheer weirdness of the special offers, and a dedicated hardcore trying to get gammon steaks into their underwear. What social story could a quarter-century of Aldi tell? Could you trace the undulations of a city’s hardship via its shop staff, the richness of their stories, their low-key sympathy? It would be fascinating to try, though you’d need a more open organisation than one that won’t even tell you whether or not a store exists.
As I left, Laura was scrutinising some yellow plums. She gave me a warm smile. She’d made it along about a third of an aisle.
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