'Christmas is paramount to us': St Giles Cheese bosses gear up for busiest time of the year

Steve and Caroline Ward are no strangers to running a shop during adverse trading times. This year, in July, they celebrated their tenth anniversary in St Giles Street, after throwing open their doors initially as the economy was shrinking in what became a double-dip recession.

It was never a dream for the pair to open a cheese shop but it soon became a reality when Steve fell off his shed roof before breaking his foot ahead of an Irish dancing tour he was embarking on as a sound engineer in central Asia.

After sharing an evening of wine and cheese with their friends, after he was made redundant, the husband and wife duo pondered over whether they could be a stockist for posh cheeses, chocolates and chutneys in town. And, twelve weeks later they were given the keys to their rustic-looking shop - which is the closest stockist of some cheeses sold at Borough Market.

The shop - one of Northampton's independent gems - has stayed open since day one of the first lockdown, in March. The pair had to think on their feet and started offering a delivery service which works on a call-the-shop-first basis, after their website stopped working.

If it wasn't for the powers of social media to help them to sell their wares - which this month includes Christmas hampers - it would be much harder, as footfall in the town centre has plummeted and the town awaits which tier it will be put into after the second national lockdown.

"I've stopped watching the press conferences," Steve said. I'm completely burying my head in the sand at the moment. I can't cope with all the doom and gloom. I put my blinkers on and come into work and carry on.

"It's been challenging for us. From day one, it instantly went very quiet and footfall disappeared overnight.

"The footfall is still right down during this lockdown but we are seeing folk," Steve added. "We are now getting orders for Christmas. Christmas is absolutley paramount for us, we get a quarter of our turnover inside a week.

"Our biggest challenge this year is how we are going to get through the numbers of people, as we usually have a queue snaking out through the shop but we can't do that this year."

The pair are now taking orders over-the-phone for their Christmas hampers and say they are hopeful that they will be fully booked by the weekend - that is anything up to 90 hampers.

"We are very, very lucky because there's only really myself and Caroline," Steve added. "We are proper cheap dates, when we started this business we didn't take a wage for a long time, we can be quite frugal.

"There hasn't been a point where we have turned around and said 'this is a disaster, how are we going to survive this?' - while it's challenging and tough we are scraping along."

To get all their orders ready for the big day - the pair are set for some late nights as they are to stay behind at the shop until 10pm this week, to pack up goodies for Christmas hampers.