JH Wheritt, Scarborough: The family-run shop on the Yorkshire coast which is closing down after 181 years

A steady flow of regulars are coming through the door of JH Wheritt, 5-7 Eastborough, to swap reminiscences as Celia and her sister Sharon Jackson call time on their family business of 181 years.

It has been their life - as well as that of many Scarborough holidaymakers - and it will be a huge wrench when in just a week’s time they close up for good.

"We put it on the market before Christmas - the next thing we are going to have to shut. Time is a thief," says Celia, 68, who says despite her married name, they've always been known as Wherritts.

She says if Sharon hadn't decided to retire to spend time with her young grandchildren, garden and travel, she may have just "tootled on".

"We haven't sold the property but we are getting to the point where we need to get new stock in. We'll shut it while it is looking reasonably good. We are going to go out on a high."

It was their great uncle George who started business in Scarborough in 1845 with two shops, including one at the Royal Hotel, which was damaged by a bomb in 1918.

As children Celia and Sharon liked at play at being cashiers, ringing the money into the tills.

"When my father died in 1979, my mum went to the accountant. He said: ‘Look, you have jobs for your children’. I've never woken up and thought I don't want to go to work.

"We’ve been bought up with shop ethic - you can't have the weekend off as Saturday is a retail day."

The family has owned the shop on Eastborough since 1899 - so long that fashions have gone full circle.

A stash of costume jewellery, brooches, clip-on earrings and bangles, dating from the 1930s to 1950s, were cleared from the shelves after being deemed too dated for trendsetters in the swinging 60s. They’re now all the rage again.

Customers have been buying some as keepsakes.

"A lady from Newcastle came down specially on Monday. They say: ‘I just want something to remember you by.’

They've known the seasons in part by who comes through the door - like the Dutch family who come every July, and whose sons they have seen grow up from little boys into 6ft 6ers.

"It's all I've ever known - Sharon will be bossing me about, saying put on your walking boots, you're going for a walk.

"There is a point where you have to say we can't do this. We're both healthy at the moment but if one of us was to become ill, it would be a really big job to sort out.

"It is just lovely that people have remembered us. We are not just a shop.”