Love Your Neighbourhood: We Meet the People of Church Stretton

Transcript

00:00So I'm James Russell. I'm the owner of The Outdoor Depot. We've had the shop now since 2010,

00:07so about 15 years, and the business was established in 1998. I grew up in Churchstretton. I've been

00:14there since I was about 10 years old. I went to school, both schools, well I went to a little

00:18school in Rushbury, which is about five miles away from Churchstretton, and then at the secondary

00:24school. I love the hills. I love the hills. I used to explore on my mountain bike. I disappear for

00:29hours and hours and go for miles and miles and miles. I don't even think my parents realised

00:33how far I'd go. They just think, well, where's James? Oh, he's on his bike somewhere, and I'd be

00:39miles away, go on a 20, 30 mile bike ride or something over the hills. Being part of the

00:44community again, so I had a life doing other things, working for Hewlett-Packard and Samsung

00:51and people like that, which dragged me away from Churchstretton and Shropshire, although I was

00:55still living here. I felt like I wasn't really part of the community anymore, because I was only

01:00coming back at weekends really. So buying a business in the town, I just felt like I was

01:06part of that community again, which is really nice. Bringing up my family, my children. It's

01:13such a fantastic town. It's such a friendly town. It feels like a safe town. We feel the

01:19schools are pretty decent, so I don't think they realise how lucky they are about growing up in

01:25Churchstretton. I'm sure I did when I was young like that, but yeah, that's one of the main things

01:29in the community this year. It's a nice community. It's got a lot of people coming in from

01:37the surrounding areas. Well, people do travel to come on holiday here, so you've got visitors

01:44and you've got the local community, so we're well supported by the local community, and then

01:47you've got all, we can sell all the little peripheral bits and pieces to people who are

01:54just coming into the town. So it's got that nice mixture of the locals and the walkers,

02:00and you've got people who come out just to have a coffee and a little wander and do a bit of

02:04shopping. Yeah, that's nice. I personally like it because of the hills, the space.

02:09There aren't hundreds of people about, so it's that nice balance. I like the outdoors.

02:17Well, I think it's nice, just that nice mixture of going for a nice town walk,

02:23because you can go up into Rectory Woods and down into Cardymore Valley, back into the town,

02:28come and have a nice coffee or go to the pub. You can get fish and chips or you can have a pub

02:33meal or a cafe meal, and you can have a little wander around the shops, and it's a nice day.

02:39I'd lived prior to that six years in Lancashire, but originally from the Cotswolds,

02:43so I moved around a little bit, but it's lovely here, settled here now. Yeah, it could be nicer.

02:49It's a real lovely community. You kind of know everybody, and there is so much going on. There's

02:56always stuff going on, and, you know, I do a lot of volunteer work, so, you know, I'm busy. I work

03:02as well. I work in a couple of shops, so, yeah, it's lovely. It's a great place for visitors,

03:08great place for people that live here. You know, you've got everything on your doorstep. It's

03:13lovely. The hills, obviously, a lot of people come to for the walking, but I'm actually involved

03:19with the arts festival in the summertime, and that's two weeks worth of music, arts, drama,

03:25and we get people coming actually from all over the country that's the book to come for

03:30two weeks at the wedding, so that's really good. That's really nice.