One of Britain’s longest-serving shopkeepers who has been supplying hikers and holidaymakers with goods for 50 years has no plans to retire - at the ripe age of 82.<br /><br />May Stocks says her store in the Yorkshire Dales remained an “essential part” of the local area after almost half a century of independent trading.<br /><br />The great-grandmother said she had opened the grocery store in the mid-1970s after intrepid walkers kept asking to buy milk and eggs at her isolated farmhouse.<br /><br />The shop - which sits close to a section of the famous Pennine Way trail - was built from empty storage shed and initially sold just a few essential items. <br /><br />But May has since completed two extensions, with her ‘Aladdin’s cave’ -style store now offering everything from fancy champagne to shampoo and chocolate. <br /><br />May, who has lived in the tiny rural community of Heptonstall, West Yorks., all her life, said the secret to running a successful rural business was loving a good conversation.<br /><br />She said: “You want a lot of patience, and you’ve got to be able to converse with everybody.<br /><br />“You just treat everybody alike, and it’s time-consuming, but I’ve enjoyed it because I like talking to people. <br /><br />“The store is a hub where people know they can come if they want something or want to know something - it’s an essential part of the area.”<br /><br />May told her late husband Michael that she wanted to start up a shop after noticing a rise in young hikers asking for essential food at their farm.<br /><br />She said: “It was just about the time the Pennine Way started, and walkers kept on coming up to the farm and saying 'You haven’t got any eggs? You haven’t got any milk?'<br /><br />“I said to Michael, 'I might as well open a shop' - and that’s how it started. <br /><br />“Originally, we just sold milk and eggs and crisps and pop and ice cream, and things like that, and then it just grew from there."<br /><br />May’s shop has now gone well beyond selling basic essentials and even rivals some small supermarkets in city centres.<br /><br />She said: “We’ve got a good selection now of everything, and it’s gone beyond what we expected. <br /><br />“Sometimes people will come here who don’t live around here, and they’ll say: “I wish we had a shop like this!” It’s very well used.”<br /><br />May said her clientele has changed dramatically over the years, and she has expanded to meet their evolving needs<br /><br />She said: “When we started 50 years ago, you got the French, the Italians, the Germans – when they all finished college over there.<br /><br />“It was a cheap holiday to walk The Pennine Way, but it's not cheap now – it’s expensive.<br /><br />“People who are coming now are the middle-aged people. There are one or two young ones, but I’d say it’s people who are in their 50s and 60s.”<br /><br />Despite the challenges of rural life - not least the bad weather - May said that she doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of her chosen occupation.<br /><br />She said: “You prepare yourself in about November to get ready for bad weather, and you can survive then.<br /><br />“But I never think I’ve had enough of this way of life. As long as I can keep healthy, which up to now I have been, I’ll continue.”
