Glickman's trashed in Tottenham rioting

"Life is more important than shop windows or a bit of stock" said Corinne Lewis, demonstrating a remarkably phlegmatic attitude after Glickman's, the independent tool and hardware fixture of Tottenham's High Road was ransacked and trashed in the riots on Saturday.

The business that she and husband Derek run, and which has been in operation since the 1930s, is now boarded outside and wrecked inside. Looters, as Corinne put it, "Targeted the shop for tools to do more looting with." Only swift action by local flat-dwellers and the police avoided the building, unlike others in the vicinity, being burnt out when a flaming wheelie bin was pushed up against the frontage.

Son Russell commented on the radio about his father's determination to press on with the business until retirement, saying: "Dad is a stubborn old git." Corinne spoke highly of neighbours, whom she said, had been returning stolen tools that they were finding in their front gardens. She also complimented their insurance broker, Bob Campbell of Towergate, who she described as "an absolute gem." The company had been the only insurer that would take the shop on after the Broadwater rioting in the 1980s.

Glickman's trade association, bira, commented on the pair's response to the devastation wrought at the weekend: "There are, doubtless, causes for the explosion of violence that we saw at the weekend but there can be no excuses. Shops like this are part of the fabric of local life  and the rioters have damaged their own community in attacking Glickman's. Figures for town centre vacancies and the Portas review of the problems of high street retailing show it is vital that independents are given every possible help to stay in business. The Lewis's resilience and determination are admirable but rioting and looting are challenges that no retailer should have to face, anywhere."

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• The scum that have done this

  Posted by: ian levene (ian levene)

  Glickmans know me as the ;PEN MAN& and for the 25 years that my offices were in Tottenham I would only buy from what i can only describe as a shop in a million. A family business with all the traditions that we should look up to has been violated by mindless individuals.

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