YOU know those scenes in Tolkien where the hole-dwellers emerge into the open air to go on perilous quests?

That’s what I look like shopping. I scurry behind my wife like a hobbit caught in headlights.

So, despite my two A Levels in Economics, achieved in the days preceding devaluation (of the groat), my assessment of how the retail trade is faring carries about as much respect as a town hall laptop.

But I do know one thing. After all the downturn gloom of the past months, the opening of the John Lewis at Home store in the retail park at Branksome has ignited a beacon of confidence for the future.

So full marks to the John Lewis Partnership – an interesting company whose partners include all their staff – for having the bottle to go for the new challenge of a homeware outlet away from a city centre.

They have shown vision, reaching upwards at a time of timidity.

The queues yesterday suggest the gamble of their opening gambit will turn out a winner. Sometimes ambitious firms have to show more investment gumption than the butcher in the old Tommy Cooper gag. He wouldn’t accept a £50 bet about whether he could reach the meat on the highest shelf.

The steaks, he said, were too high.

(In other circumstances, however, stuff on the top shelf should be left well alone.)