Bicester Village

Back in the early 1970's, I lived close to Bicester when it was a rather tawdry town close to the Upper Heyford American airforce base, home to the F111 fighters. There was a folk club in a local Bicester hotel and it became our Sunday night haunt, entry was by a pair of Levis and an Aran sweater. Fortunately I was more interested in being a wild rover than singing it so I upped sticks from the flat landscapes of Oxfordshire and headed for Glasgow and the mountains.

We were driving down the M40 to spend a week in London and needing a break after 6 hours on the road so I suggested dropping in to Bicester Village. It was only 3 miles from the motorway and surely not as dire as the franchised food and drink outlets that litter the motorways. The traffic to Bicester village was like the bank holiday traffic to Blackpool in the 1960's and finding a parking space amidst the sea of Mercs, Range Rovers and BMWs was an exercise in patience, a quality that has always eluded me. I could have gone for valet parking but as someone who has yet to travel first-class by either train or plane, this was a non starter. I did a couple of laps of the car park until a space was vacated between two large 4x4s. The sort of space that makes you wish you had teflon coated doors but ensures that you do not stay long fearful of the damage done by the occupants of the adjacent vehicles..

We entered the village that consisted of over 130 high end retail outlets fitted out in wooden shops in a setting that could have been a Pinewood stage setting for a wild west town. We were engulfed by numerous bevies of well-heeled fashion shoppers, groups of foreign tourists and casually dressed aspiring families. No matter which group they belonged to they all seemed to be carrying half a dozen bags exhibiting designer labels as a symbol of their extravagance. Bicester Village outlet shopping centre has the highest rental of any comparable shopping centre in the UK and attracts over 6 million visitors a year. An hour later and having bought a shirt and a bag we bought two ice creams for £8 and scooted out before the 4x4 wagons began to roll.

It had been a useful reminder of the beauty of internet shopping. Why would anyone want to spend an afternoon or waste a day being ripped off by retail operators who specialise in mark-ups that are an insult to both the workforce who manufacture the products and the aspirational shoppers who are duped into buying them? I'd rather go back to my Aran sweater than return to Bicester village.

Aran sweater, a 1970's alternative to Bicester village