Popular Nelson retires

From the Echo, first published Thursday 2nd Oct 2003.

ONE of the country's longest serving newsagents has sold his last copy of the Daily Echo and retired.

Nelson Townsend didn't mind admitting there were a few tears in his eyes as he served his final customers at Wareham's Nelson's News.

But with a surprise presentation of champagne and flowers for him and wife Sheila from friends and customers he was left in little doubt of his popularity.

Organiser Les Burns said: "When you went into the shop he was always singing. He's a character and he's done a lot of good in the town."

Nelson, 71, said: "It's a lovely town with lovely people. While we are leaving the shop we are not leaving the town and the many friends we have made here."

The Wareham town councillor has been involved with the trade and its punishing hours, man and boy for the last 63 years.

His father was a newsagent and when he went off to the army from his Torquay shop during the war, Nelson, aged eight, was up in the pitch dark of blackout helping his mother collect the papers.

Over the years he has had nine different shops in seven areas and seen huge changes, including the fall of the independent retailer and the rise of garages and supermarkets selling similar goods.

He and Sheila moved to Wareham from London 16 years ago but now Nelson's News in the Rempstone Centre, South Street is to be swallowed up by the redevelopment of Somerfield.

Well-known in the town, he co-founded the Rex Players annual review and treads the boards with his Max Miller act.

"I have always been the old style, had a chat and a laugh with the customers. That's the part I enjoyed," he said. "My family laugh at me but my philosophy is if when you pass from this world you had put in more than you have taken out, you have done your stint."

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