The place to buy 'you know, one of those things...' (From The Oxford Times)

The place to buy 'you know, one of those things...'

3:43pm Wednesday 21st July 2010 in

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I was saddened, like so many, to learn of the imminent closure of Gill and Co, the hardware shop tucked away off Oxford’s High Street. The business dates back, astonishingly, to the 16th century.

This was the place where you went for “you know, one of those things that...”

My last purchase in this category was a key — it turned out to be a brass one with a socket at one end — for opening the cover on my outside gas meter. It cost a quid.

A few weeks before that, the shop’s always brilliant staff were able to find for me the washer-like disc I needed to fit a lampshade to a base that had not been designed to take it.

Where shall I go for this sort of thing in the future?