One of Gravesend’s oldest businesses will close its doors for the final time on Saturday and made a parting shot at supermarkets for ruining the art of butchery.

Bayldon Brothers has been in Queen Street since 1947, but the family-run butchers will shut for good this weekend as its owners settle for a well-earned retirement.

Phillip Bayldon, 60, and his sister-in-law Barbara, 70, are expecting a busy and emotional send-off, with loyal customers calling in for one last visit.

Their decision has been partly influenced by Phillip's view that butchery is a dying art, with supermarkets mainly to blame. His views will have some resonance in a week when the World Health Organisation warning over that processed meats were a major cause of cancer. It prompted experts to suggest that people should buy more of their meat, particularly sausages, from their local butcher.

Mr Bayldon said: “It’s very sad when a family business has to go. Most meat is just bought in packages in the supermarkets now but we still do it the old-fashioned way.
“All the supermarkets get their meats from the same place, it all gets packaged up and sent out to them.

“There aren’t many butchers like our one left and people aren’t being trained to be butchers any more. I have two grandsons but they want different things. People think it’s too hard work being a butcher.

Mr Bayldon said the final day will be full of emotion and there have been tears from regulars already.

“They’re not just customers any more, they’ve become friends, and they’ve all been very upset to hear that we’re closing,” said Mrs Bayldon.

“I had a man come in saying that we’d grown up together. We really do know our customers like friends, they often come in and sit down for a cup of tea.”
“We’ve met some lovely, lovely people over the years,” said Phillip. A lady was in here crying the other day, people are really going to miss this place.”

Her father-in-law, George Bayldon, came home from the war in 1946, and everybody in the town knew him, she said.

He been a butcher before the war and when he came home he was encouraged by his friends to open a butcher’s shop, and he bought one from a Mr Saunders in 1947.

In 1949 they built the shop and he moved in the following year. In 1956, Mrs Bayldon's husband John, his eldest son, went into the business, and then in 1965 the family bought another property in Sun Lane, Echo Square. Phillip Bayldon entered the business in 1972.

He has run the business with help from his sister-in-law and a loyal team ever since, with Terry Stanley helping out at the shop for more than 30 years.

“I won’t miss the aggro of the town but I really will truly miss all of our customers,” said Mrs Bayldon.

“We’ve had the most lovely customers. One of the old boys who comes in here reached 100! I hope we’ll be able to keep in touch with some of them.”

“You get to know your customers, they like talking to you, and you don’t get that in a supermarket.”