by Tim Gausden

We have paid back the loanstock children!

And what might loanstock be? I hear you cry. Well, make yourself comfortable boys and girls and Uncle Tim will explain.

Long ago, when the world was young, in 1997, we lived in a nice but very old building here in All Saints. It was the sort of building you call character-full, which means the roof leaks. We spent a lot of money and time patching it up until one day a nice man called a structural engineer came over all pale and shaky and told us that it was going to fall down! Quite soon! This news made us all pale and shaky, but we girded our loins and put our shoulder's to the wheel, which is not very comfortable, especially the shoulder and wheel bit.

For the next 3 years our gallant band met with architects and bankers, advisors and gnomes and finally some things called property developers, who look like human beings but inside are either slimy creatures or wolves.

Eventually in 2001 we moved out of our lovely old building and into a cabin on a car park whilst the developer knocked the old place down and built a new one, which we shared, the shop and café for us, the flats for him. It was going to take 12 months, but we did not realise that was builders' months, which are completely different from ordinary, everyday ones. So that took us to 2003.

I could tell all the deeds of derring-do, all the traps and pitfalls we stumbled into, but that would mean your Uncle Tim would have to go and lie down in a darkened room for another 6 months, so I won't.

We had been saving our pennies to pay for the new building, and borrowed money from the nice lady at the Co-op Bank, but it was not enough because of those builders' months, so we had to find more.

Once before our kind customers had lent us money. That was in 1980 when we bought the old building, so we thought we could ask again. As a workers' co-op we are allowed to issue a thing called a loanstock, which is like a share, but does not give a share in the business. We offered people the chance to lend us money, and to set their own level of interest. We were able to borrow over £60,000 at an average rate of interest of only 3.5%, as some kind people lent money with no interest at all - their only reward the glow of a good deed well done. This actually saved the day for us in 2003 and helped the co-op to survive against all the odds.

The loan was for 5 years, and 5 years passed at the end of March, which just goes to show how quickly time passes when builders are not involved. So, we paid all those lovely people back, well we would have done but some people have gone missing. We are not sure if they have moved and not told us, or been eaten by developers, but we need to hear from them or their relatives so we can give them their money back.

The final bit of good news in this whole romance is that we have been able to pay back the loan without touching the savings because we have sold so much good food.

Now all good bedtime stories have to have a moral, good will triumph over evil, that sort of thing. The moral of this story is that co-operation is all very well, but if you expect your money back you have to tell us where you live.

Good night children everywhere. If you did lend us money in 2003 and have not heard from us, please contact us: we want to give it you back!

The photo at the beginning of the article is Uncle Tim in 1998. By the look on his face he's just had a meeting with a wolf! For those of you who don't know Tim, he worked at 8th Day for 23 years and retired last June. He was instrumental in the re-building of our co-operative and we will forever be in his debt.