Cleobury Mortimer

Mumford’s has traded as an ironmonger's store in Cleobury Mortimer for over 100 years with No. 2 Church Street being rather a handsome brick building situated in the centre of this small market town. It is a traditional business where nails are still sold by the pound, screws are sold singly, and shelves are crammed from floor to ceiling with useful everyday items like moth balls, wax candles, enamel Billy cans, galvanised buckets, laundry starch, fork handles, fly killer papers, carbolic soap, pick-axes – not an inch of space is wasted. Most importantly Mumfords still continues to support its traditional values of respect, courtesy, honesty, trust, sincerity, integrity, kindness and service, just as it would have done a century ago. We still embrace progress when we need to, but we have never allowed the modern world to compromise the values that form the very essence of what our business stands for. Mumfords is superbly positioned, right in the middle of the High Street, across the road from the Church and the Market Hall; and in a curve in the road that gives a clear outlook both up and down the street. The central location of the shop enables us to be a focal point, a place where our customers come and chat about the ‘ways of the world’ and local issues, making this shop a hub for exchange of local gossip. Mumfords is fortunate that it has always traded well, and felt that its place was as part of a healthy trading community, but we have been saddened to see the demise of so many of our neighbouring businesses which have closed at a rate of about 100 each decade. Despite so much in its favour our trading community was rapidly shrinking. The economy had taken a tumble, but Cleobury Mortimer has the advantage of location, being on a good tourist route which brought visitors to the town every day. In addition, two grant-funded surveys conducted by the University of Worcester concluded that a significant percentage of the Cleobury hinterland which consisted of eight surrounding parishes, used Cleobury Mortimer often for basic purchases. That apart, factors began emerging to suggest that all was not well in our community, scratch below the surface and nothing was as it seemed. One of the most obvious changes has been the lack of social cohesion and the increase in hostility, but it would take many years to discover that Cleobury was entering a period of turbulence, and that we were in for a difficult time. If everything had been hunkydory in our town there would be no need to be writing this account, but that has not been so, and there is risk that historical references will contain no accurate account of the sequence of events that blighted this community from 1999 to 2014. This era has been so troubled and so blighted by malpractice that even public records from our Parish Council meetings have been falsified and manipulated and cannot be relied upon for accuracy. Now don’t be tempted to judge this account before you know the whole story. . . . . . . . Cleobury Mortimer has a population of about 3000, but for such a small town is has a range of social problems, but the worst aspect is the rather unpleasant culture that has taken a stranglehold, but it is possible to narrow this influence down to just a small handful of people whose detrimental actions and influences have poisoned the minds of others to create a fractured community in a dark and generally ungoverned place . . . . . . . It is nothing short of a national scandal that British schools have plummeted down World Education League Tables leaving them trailing behind Poland, Albania and Estonia, this result was attributed to a poor grasp of literacy and numeracy . . . . . . . The consequence of poor education - In the 21st century it is morally wrong that any pupil should leave school after eleven years of education that at times has been so substandard, that a pupil can become disaffected when faced with poor employment prospects . . . . . . . ‘Honesty in politics is just like oxygen, the higher you get the less there is of it.’ The ink had not dried on the Muller land deal before both Unitary Councillors took their political juggernaut of corruption and rolled into the nearby parish of Neen Savage . . . . . . . Thank goodness we have lovely views in Neen Savage, it helps to compensate for the aggravation in our local politics . . . . . . . Around 2002 the Christmas light saga popped up. Christmas is a crucial trading time in every town, and Cleobury Mortimer is no exception. The towns around us like Tenbury Wells, Bridgnorth, Bewdley and Ludlow always have a splendid array of pretty lights, but Cleobury has the dreariest of Christmas lights, and Christmas 2014 was no exception! However, Cleobury’s Christmas lights were being kept in a store shed at Mumfords, and way back in the autumn of 2002 along came a jobbing gardener with his clipboard and declared that on behalf of the Chamber of Trade he was changing the plan for lights that year, and there were to be no lights at all on the south side of the street, only the north side. At Mumfords we saw red – and the Cleobury ‘Christmas light saga’ was triggered . . . . . . . Well put! 'Consumerism can be defined as acquiring things you do not want, with money you do not have to impress people you do not like'. Preferring a playboy lifestyle, most people do not give a monkeys about politics, and besides, there is no general desire to devote time to any public life these days, and who can blame anyone. But if everyone adopted the same stance, where would we be?