There’s a traditional corner shop in Leeds where customers feel they can talk about “everything” – even sensitive topics such as menopause.
Fiona and John Ingleton have owned Halton News in Irwin Approach for almost ten years, taking over the shop in 2012.
Fiona, 52, say it’s common for their regular customers to talk to them about their “marriages and pregnancies” and they’ve gotten to see families flourish over the years.
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Cleaner Debra Matthews is a regular customer, she became a grandmother five times over since the couple first opened the shop and there’s one more grandchild on the way.
Debra, 53, said: “Fiona knows everything about me. She knows more about me than I do. I am close to them, they know all my family. All my grandkids.
“I used to come here for my mum, for her papers and magazines. They’ve always helped, they’re really nice.
“We actually talk about menopause as well! We talk about everything.”
“We’ve just got a coffee bar missing,” said Fiona. “It’s very community-based is this shop.”
Debra has received a lot of cleaning work through the advertisement she’s put up in Fiona and John’s shop.
The couple allows people to put up advertisements in their shop free of charge, as they believe they operate to serve the community.
Fiona, who is originally from Oakwood, met John, 54, when they were working in Harehills Primary School together.
John, from Woking, had been a teacher for more than 18 years and Fiona was the school’s business manager.
They have eight children between them from different partners.
They decided to take over the Halton newsagents, which has been operating since the 1960s, as they fancied doing “something different”.
John said: “My dad bought a shop when I was a teenager and I always quite enjoyed it. I thought one of these days, I’d like to get a shop.”
Their social circle has massively increased since taking over the newsagents.
Fiona said: “A five-minute walk from home takes about half an hour as people want to stop and talk. John will go ‘ooh, you took a long time to get in’.”
Fiona says there are several challenges to running a shop that people who don’t run a shop wouldn’t realise.
She said: “Waking up very early and opening up at about 5.30am and working until closing time. It’s probably about an 80-hour week. There’s also all the paperwork behind the scenes, buying the stock.”
They don’t employ any additional shop staff but love giving children in the area their first job with a paper round. They’ve had some boys who started when they were 13 and still delivering papers at 18.
“They whizz around on their bikes or their dad’s cars or if they’ve got a puncture, they reluctantly walk their paper round,” said Fiona.
Over the years, former paper deliverers visit as young adults and introduce their younger siblings so they can be given their first job.
The couple believe they’ve avoided any trouble from people as they‘re “nice down to earth people”.
John sometimes has to put his former “school teacher head on” to deal with silly children who visit, however.
John said: “When the kids come in, you speak to them as if they were in school – in a nice way.”
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