Cosham's "oldest shopkeeper", 79, puts Haywards second-hand store up for sale after 65 years serving customers

Patricia Cook has run Haywards in Wayte Street, near Cosham Fire Station since she was 15 years old and took over her father’s shop. She has now decided to put the property – currently a general second-hand goods shop - on the market ahead of her 80th birthday next month. The small store has been run in different guises by Patricia over the years and will be familiar to many people who have visited the area.

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Patricia recalled how, in the early days of the shop not long after the second world war, she would sell homemade teddy bears and paintings made by local women in the area.

Patricia said: “There was nobody else to run it but me so I left school immediately and the next day I was in charge of a shop.

“I’ll miss meeting and talking to people because I have always had someone to talk to, and being at home with just my husband, there won’t be the amount of nice people to talk to.”

Patricia’s daughter Jane Allen said her mother is well-known in the local community but has long maintained that she will retire when she turns 80.

Patricia’s daughter Jane said: “She left school and wanted to be a hairdresser. My granddad bought a shop and said “here’s the keys, go and run my shop”. Basically, that’s where she has been ever since. She bought my grandad out when he died so the shop then became hers and she has run it ever since.

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Haywards, currently a second-hand retaier has traded under a number of names over the years. When Patricia first started working there, it was a model shop but has also specialised in fishing tackle and baby products in the past. Patricia will celebrate her 80th birthday on Thursday, November 30 and Jane speculated that her mother could be Cosham’s oldest shop owner.

Jane added: "Everyone in Cosham knows her - that’s how long she has been there.”

If you are interested in buying the shop, you can contact Bernards estate agents.