Though my dad worked there, I wasn’t alone with my early love affair with the pound shop. The concept was one that took off (by the '90s, shops like Poundland and Everything’s £1 were thriving) and this week, as Poundworld announced that it was closing its 355 shops across the UK, with an estimated loss of 5000 jobs, there was a collective slump – not just for those who rely on a pack of multipack Walkers for a quid, but for the nostalgic magic of how far a pound would once go. The demise of the pound shop is also the demise of the pound – it used to signify economic sovereign strength, with the Queen’s head regally appointed to remind you that you were royal-adjacent every time you presented it at the till. It was sterling, it was gold! The pound as an object alone was designed to invoke a sense of beauty – one that has faded as we’ve moved towards a cashless society, as it’s lost value, and as we hurtle towards a political climate where British heritage nostalgia has given rise to sinister right-wing political ideologies.