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Art of Living on government lifeline

Andrew Duncan, director of Art of Living is one of the independent cookshop owners that have welcomed the business lifeline provided by government’s measures to protect the self-employed and workers during the current crisis, The specialist cookshop was established in 1972, and has branches in Reigate, Cobham and Banstead.

Above: Art of Living’s Babette Duncan is sharing her expert advise on bread making.
Above: Art of Living’s Babette Duncan is sharing her expert advise on bread making.

Andrew reflects: “One of my favourite films of all time is “Casablanca” and Senor Ferrari, played by Sidney Greenstreet, has a marvellous line in it where he says to Ingrid Bergman, in his inimitable threateningly oily style “Frankly it would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles”!  It always makes me chuckle, maybe because I don’t tend to believe in miracles? At least not for me… Well, then the chancellor handed us a miracle on a plate. He said he was going to pay 80% of our wages for a while and give us some substantial help to pay our overheads as well for a similar amount of time. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this and I felt completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the generosity of it, overwhelmed by the realism of it, overwhelmed that someone was actually helping us out of a hole!”

Art of Living is continuing to trade online, with Anthony picking and packing solo at Banstead. Co-director Babette Duncan is helping Art of Living’s community of customers with bread baking advice, including how to manage with less flour or less yeast when there is a shortage of ingredients.

 

Top: Art of Living has three stores in Surrey that are temporarily closed due to the pandemic and a long established online shop.

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