Thatcher’s Grantham birthplace to feature in book on corner shops

The corner shop where Margaret Thatcher was born is to feature in a book written by a BBC tv presenter.

Babita Sharma visited Grantham to see the premises on North Parade that now trades as Living Health, a natural health and chiropractic centre.

Babita is a regular face on the BBC news channel and BBC World News. Her other programmes include BBC1’s Supermarket Shopping Secrets and BBC4’s ‘Booze, Beans & Bhajis: The Story of the Corner Shop’.

The 40-year-old grew up in Berkshire corner shops, leading to a passion for them and the book, which is due out next year. She spent an afternoon in Grantham, researching the book which will have “quite a lot in there” about Thatcher’s birthplace, her father Alfred Roberts and shop life in 1940s Grantham.

She said: “It was very interesting to get a perspective of what she (Thatcher) would have looked at. It’s opposite Asda and Lidl, which is ironic. It did make me smile.” Babita did not see Grantham Museum’s Thatcher exhibits but added she may well return and do so. xxxxxx