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An elderly shopkeeper who captured the nation’s heart when she fought off a robber with her walking stick has announced her retirement.
June Turner, 89, became a national talking point in September 2019 when robber Aaron Mountford raided her shop demanding cash at 6.30am.
She has run AJ and J Newsagents in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, since 1975 but says a combination of Covid and the demolition of nearby houses has impacted trade.
June said: ‘I will miss it, despite my daily 4am alarm call but we’ve got to go some time, haven’t we? It’s been marvellous.’
She runs the shop with her 69-year-old son, Alan, who started work as a paperboy at the age of 13, but they will close for the final time on Friday.
Alan said: ‘All round here was full of terrace properties, and it’s taken 15 years before they’ve actually started rebuilding again and bringing the communities back.
‘But habits have changed during that time, and it’s just one of those things.’
Alan, who still does the papers, added: ‘On the whole it’s been really good memories. We’ve had lots of fun and lots of laughs.
‘I think I must be the oldest newspaper boy in the country.’
Recalling the robbery, June said she went ‘hell for leather’ at Mountford with her walking stick.
He pushed her to the floor before taking £50 and some cigarettes. Ultimately, Mountford, who was 28 at the time, was jailed for two years after admitting robbery.
Recalling her heroics when she fought off Mountford with her trusty walking stick, she told the BBC: ‘I just hit him on his back and up his bum. I just smacked him. He really had it.’
She later went on to receive £250 in a High Sheriff’s award for bravery.
Speaking at the time, June said: ‘I acted on instinct really. I thought there’s no way he’s having the money we work so hard to make.
‘I wish I’d had something a bit harder with me, so I could have finished him off and knocked him out.
‘I don’t really know what was going through my head, but I knew I had to defend our business by any means necessary. I was determined to protect myself and our shop.’