BRIAN READE: 'We're all to blame for destroying our high streets but I know how to save them'

Do you fancy a stroll down Memory Lane, or even better, Memory High Street? Many of you will recall one near you having a butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer, electrical shop, newsagent, and grocery store and how you didn’t have to buy a bag for life or flash a pattern like a zebra’s backside at a till to pay for stuff. Ah, them were the days, eh? And then the high streets changed. In between tinned-up and whitewashed windows stood lonely-looking charity shops, vape-sellers and empty, dodgy barbers. And we all moaned at the heartbreaking sight, blamed multi-nationals, recessions, the internet, politicians, Amazon – everything but ourselves. Yet it was us, the ones who stopped shopping there, who did the damage. We drove through the high streets to fill our car boots in retail parks and mega-sized supermarkets and clicked on our computers to buy clothes, holidays and books. I am constantly accepting parcels for my wife who last walked inside a clothes shop when hot pants were all the rage. My daughters don’t buy ingredients to cook breakfast with from local shops, they pay Uber Eats to deliver it, cooked, to their flat doors. The evolution of low cost-base capitalism has made us home-delivery junkies and the price we’re paying is to put the one-time beating hearts of our communities on life support. It’s why Andy Burnham is right to talk about revitalising them but encouraging “butchers, bakers and bookshops” to return, won’t cut it. We need a complete rethink on how these old high streets can help solve today’s problems. With a loneliness epidemic among the old and a mental health one among the young, we should turn them into hives of activity that lure people to socialise over a coffee or a beer, get coached in writing job applications or learn a skill or a hobby. A wine bar opened last year in an empty shop at the top of our road and after three trips there I knew more neighbours than I had in 22 years of living among them. What a vital lifeline these social hubs can be for people who need company or contacts to get through life. There are thousands of us retired or semi-retired with skills we’d willingly pass on for free. An electrician mate tells me he’d love to teach the basics of being a spark, a former lecturer is aching to give local history talks and I’d be chuffed to be a part of writing workshops. With government support we could turn empty shops into mini-gyms for free fitness classes or install computers to show people how to master the internet, trace their family trees or read the papers and the increased footfall in those high streets would see craft shops, cafes and independent food shops pop up. If modern capitalism had its way we’d all just sit at home buying their products off our phone minus the costly overheads of running shops. With the AI juggernaut approaching, things will only get worse. We need to fight back. Let’s remember what high streets once were. Somewhere you left the house for to rejoin the wider human race. We need to make them that again. Couch potatoes of the world unite and get off your backsides. You have nothing to lose but your piles.