The Covid-19 pandemic continues to deliver bad news.
We reported in recent days how the crisis has taken its toll on high street giant Greggs.
The bakery retailer has struggled like others since the first lockdown in March and as many as 820 employees could now lose their jobs.
Greggs, of course, is the home-grown Tyneside success story that went national.
Today the company sells its popular sausage rolls and pasties in 1,850 outlets across the UK, and employs 25,000 staff - but the brand stems from humble origins.
It was February 1939 and World War II was approaching when Jack Gregg got on his bike and began delivering fresh eggs and yeast to the households of Newcastle.
Six years later, by the time he returned home after serving in the conflict, Jack’s bike had been replaced by two vans and the business now included a line of confectionery, thanks to his enterprising wife, Elsie, who ran things in his absence.
In 1951, Jack bought his first shop - on Gosforth High Street - and Greggs of Gosforth was born.
By the time he died in 1964, there was still only one shop, but Greggs had a fleet of seven vans.
Elsie was responsible for the catering side. “I loved the work,” she told the Chronicle years later, “but it was a bit harrowing at times. Once I had as many as four wedding receptions on the same day!
“When my husband died I was quite prepared to sell the business. However, it seemed a pity to give up something Jack and I had worked so hard to establish, so I offered it instead to my children.”
It was in the 1970s and ‘80s that Greggs began to expand by adding other regional bakery chains to its roster.
After acquiring bread-making firms from Glasgow to Manchester, and Yorkshire to Kent, Greggs became top of the baps when it bought up its main rival Bakers Oven in 2008.
(Bakers Oven, incidentally, had itself taken over another famous local bakers’ brand - Carricks - in the 1980s).
In 2019, the huge popularity of the vegan sausage roll, launched at the start of the year, saw shares in the company rising by 8% and sales by 14%.
Today, Greggs is a UK retail giant, serving popular breakfast and lunch items and sandwiches and coffee - as well as traditional bakery goods.
And the company has had a positive influence in the community with its Greggs Foundation..
In the 1960s it began providing free pie and peas suppers for older residents in Gateshead. The annual Children’s Cancer Run has raised more than £5m for cancer research. And every day it provides a healthy breakfast for more than 6,000 primary school children through its Breakfast Club programme.
Meanwhile, there was some positive news from Greggs with the company still in talks to open 20 new branches by Christmas, with a branch in Pelaw now open
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