George Bannister, and his wife, looked over the Corner Shop when Alf and Renee Roberts decided to sell up in July 1980. Clearly hen-pecked by his talkative wife, George was soft-spoken and polite to the Roberts and kept trying (in vain) to hurry his wife along, as she was more interested in gossiping than in looking over the shop. George had just been made redundant and they were using his redundancy pay to buy a shop - they'd looked over a few others including one which looked like "Aladdin's cave gone mouldy". George was impressed with the shop - Alf remarked to Renee that he "knew his onions" - and later contacted the Roberts offering £15,000, which was accepted even though it was £1,000 below the asking price.