A SUTTON couple are looking forward to a normal life after retiring from running a shop in the village for almost 30 years.

Stephen and Gail Place, who ran the Londis store at 30 Main Street, celebrated their final day of trading last Tuesday.

After living above and in the building next to the shop since November 1984, Stephen, 64, and Gail, 54, are looking forward to normality as they move into their new house on Manse Way.

"I want to do all the things normal people do," said Stephen. "I'd like to go for a drive on my moped, take day trips to Bridlington, Filey and Blackpool, visit Bolton Abbey and Fountains Abbey and go out for a Yorkshire lunch in a pub.

"We want to explore the area in which we live. We'd like to go for walks out on the moors above Sutton, spend time with family and invite the neighbours around for a barbecue.

"We've never had the time or the space to do things like that."

Stephen also plans to keep on serving Sutton as a district and a parish councillor.

"I think my council work will stop the onset of Alzheimer's," he said.

Stephen has been told by people that he will not know what do with his time in retirement, but he disagrees.

"I know exactly what I'm going to do with my time. I'm going out into the big, wide world and have a ball."

However he added he and Gail would miss the day-to-day contact with customers.

"Sutton is full of lovely people," Stephen said. "We have so many damn good friends in this village, most of which we won't see on a daily basis and that hurts."

He said that Sutton residents looked after each other and this was demonstrated by his most vivid and happiest memory of his time working in the shop.

"A few months after we moved in, we had problems financing stock," he recalled. "The first few months are make or break for shops and, if you don't have full shelves, you don't get the customers."

So he went into the local pub, the Black Bull, to have a few drinks and talked with some of the staff about his worries.

Later that evening, Stephen said someone from the pub stopped by his shop and "thrust a load of notes my way" and said to pay him back when he could.

"It got me over my biggest hurdle in 30 years and I paid him two weeks later," said Stephen. "That act of kindness from somebody who I hardly knew is one lesson I'll never forget - Sutton folk look after each other and care about the village."

The shop is now being run by Jazz Singh and Suki Kaur.