Sells Owt Tha Wants

 I was listening, rather than watching, a news report on the telly this week about Mary’s Farm shop located, so BBC Yorkshire said, in the hamlet of Colden, near Hebden Bridge in the ‘middle of nowhere’!

I thought the owner Mary had a young voice, yet as I looked up and saw her she was telling the camera she was 81 years old and didn’t want to give up.

Mary has been running her shop since 1974, which has a hand painted sign advertising its wares saying ‘Sells Owt Tha Wants’.  She freely acknowledges it’s in the middle of no where and once the local Pennine Way closed, she thought the shop would too.  Yet, it’s thriving, as is Mary.

Mary Stokes puts these 48 years of success down to ‘True Yorkshire Grit’ and she may be right.  But I think she’s also discovered a particular Elixir of Life that keeps us young, namely the joy of ‘service’ and the value of ‘community’.  Mary so obviously loves serving her community.

This weekend many of us will pause and, in our prayers, give thanks for the Queen’s 70 years of service as she marks her Accession Day on Sunday. 

Now there’s two names to note: Mary and Elizabeth.  In the bible they too were women who willingly and faithfully served God.

‘Service’ and ‘Community’, two ingredients that characterise the ‘young at heart’.