Revisiting a previous life

Hard to believe now, but I spent the industrial placement year of my sandwich course working in London, at Barkers of Kensington, the once-famous department store.

Last weekend, after a stroll down Portobello Road, checking out the market stalls, I retraced my steps of 27 years ago. I lived in a student hostel, a white wedding cake house in Pembridge Gardens, and every day I walked to work through Notting Hill Gate and down Kensington Church Street. I was 19 years old, and a 19 year-old less prepared for city life would be hard to imagine.

I can hardly believe I am old enough to say this, but this was before the gentrification of Notting Hill, and Kensington Church Street was lined with dusty-looking antique shops and very little else. It's much trendier now, with Kensington Place restaurant at the Notting Hill end and expensive fashion shops as you get towards High St Ken.

Barkers closed down years ago and the building was divided into lots of smaller shops. Now it houses the first Whole Foods Market in the UK, an American chain with big expansion plans. The shop is an amazing experience, offering a huge choice of gleaming fruit and veg, bread and cheese of all kinds and just about everything else you can think of to feed and nurture the human body.

I am, however, a little doubtful about its much- hyped green credentials, and I certainly don't believe the UK can support 40 of these emporia, as the company purports. In these days of rising interest rates there are so many people who can't afford to be precious about the origins of organic muesli.