A WAREHAM store with a lot of sole will shut up shop for the final time on Christmas Eve, more than 70 years after it opened.

Manager of Guppy's shoe shop 85-year-old Ronald Bailey took over the shop when his wife Marjorie, ne Guppy, died in 1999, but its lease is now up and because no one from his family wants to take over he has decided to hang up his boots.

The grandfather-of-seven told how, during the war, his wife would work between 6am and 7pm every day at the shop, in North Street, tacking heavy leather soles on to the bottom of Army boots for the soldiers based at Bovington.

More than 12 years ago Guppy's, which is one of the oldest shops in the town, got the red carpet treatment when actress Felicity Kendall, who shot to fame as Barbara in the TV sitcom The Good Life, shot a scene for her film The Mistress in the shop.

"It's very sad for all the people who have been coming in here for generations," Mr Bailey, who works at the shop with his daughter Heather Taylor, said.

"It's been part of the town for a very long time so we kept it open when Marjorie died.

"It's sad, but I am looking forward to having a rest."

Incredibly the shop still has some pairs of stilettos and hobnailed boots, which were made during the war, in its storeroom.

At one point Guppy's employed five cobblers and the machines which they used to mend shoes are still in the back of the shop.

First published: October 17