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City's 109-year-old tobacconist shop to close

Sally Johnson
BBC CWR
Eleanor Lawson
BBC News, West Midlands
BBC A man wearing a blue gilet and striped shirt stands next to a woman with silver hair, glasses, and a dark jumper with a light collar. He has his arm around her and they both smile at the camera. They stand in front of a shop with red closing down signs in the window. The shop sign, which is black, says Salt's Pipe Repairs.BBC
Carla Henry, the last person in the Salt family to own the shop, sold it to Mark Kendall in 2020

A 109-year-old tobacconist in the heart of Coventry, which survived being bombed in World War Two, is to close.

Salt's Tobacconists has been impacted by the Covid pandemic and a fall in customer numbers, its owner said.

The firm was founded in 1916 by Harry Wilfred Salt, whose granddaughter Carla Henry ran the shop with her husband until they retired in 2020.

"I just feel sad for the city centre as a whole," Mrs Henry said. "The small businesses have all disappeared and there's no individuality now."

Salt's will close its doors on 29 March, but current owner, Mark Kendall, will continue to operate a lighter repair enterprise online.

SALTS tobacconist set to close

The last member of the Salt family to own the shop, which moved to its current location on New Union Street in 1961, Mrs Henry said she believed it was one of the last surviving family-named businesses in the city centre.

"My parents used to say I spent my life in the pram in the back of the shop," she said.

"My father would go home for his tea but my mum would come here and take over."

She remembered selling sweets from jars, peanuts and ice cream alongside tobacco.

In 2020, she sold the shop to Mr Kendall, who said he had fulfilled a lifelong dream of being his own boss.

"It's come to be a bit of a sad end," he said.

A man with brown and grey hair in a blue gilet and navy and white striped top standing behind a shop counter. Behind him tins of tobacco and other smoking-related paraphernalia line shelves.
Mr Kendall said he would miss some of the shop's regular customers, who came in regularly to buy cigars and tobacco

When asked what he will miss the most about the shop, Mr Kendall said: "The customers, the giggle, the banter."

"The characters," Mrs Henry added.

Mr Kendall explained some of his older customers had been very upset by news of the closure.

"It's been great to have some really old boys come in and get to know them and hear their stories," he said.

"We've got people in their nineties coming in who've been smoking a pipe since they were 14, and to hear some of their stories, it's just a different world.

"You can see it lights up their day."

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