The coronavirus pandemic made shopping locally a necessity for the people of South Cumbria, even in smaller communities such as Levens.

Levens Village Shop has been trading for 85 years, the last five of those under the charge of Vanessa Riley and her partner Dave Hughes and for the last three months, they have well and truly gone the extra mile.

Well aware that demand for stock would rise, Vanessa and Dave have made sure their customers’ every need would be catered for during lockdown, enabling the village’s population to stay within the guidelines.

The shop has been open seven days a week throughout the outbreak and has expanded its repertoire in order to adapt, as well as setting up a delivery service to those more vulnerable to, or actually ill with, the virus.

Vanessa Riley said: “We’re really lucky anyway because we are a well-supported small shop.

“We are only a small shop but we try to stock a bit of everything for everybody.

“When we moved in, that was our mission; that people could come and actually do a shop and get something for tea, rather than just pop in and get a pint of milk and a paper.

“We’ve tried really hard these last five years to support everybody but since coronavirus everybody has been using us a lot more.

“Everybody has always been really lovely, but more and more people have been using us and they’ve been buying more from us, but at the same time we’ve been going out of our way to get things for them.”

That has included keeping the village informed on their Facebook page of re-stocking or when supplies have been scarce and even making early-morning drives to a cash and carry in Morecambe to pick up requests for specific items.

They have continued their habit of supporting charitable causes, which includes advertising sponsored walks, selling raffle tickets and lighting up the shop blue in support of the NHS.

The shop is hoping it will be able to keep much of its custom as our way of life slowly returns to normal and lockdown measures are eased.

Vanessa Riley said: “I think what it has done is make people realise what a selection of products we’ve got here in our shop.

“The only problem being is they came to us during the first few weeks and we were making sure we’d got everything for everybody because we were so busy. If that starts to drop off then you can’t get the same amount of stock because it doesn’t sell through.”