Stalwart butcher and fund-raiser Ali Dent set to retire

Ali Dent has run AJ Dent Butchers at Hilgay, near Downham Market, for 40 years.

Mr Dent, now 64, is the third generation of his family to run the shop on Stocks Hill, which was once one of six in the village. He plans to close for the last time on August 31.

Ali Dent plans to hang up his cleaver for good at the end of August (Image: Chris Bishop)

"I've just got fed up with it," he said. "I've been doing this for donkey's years.

"I was born here, I was born in this house, I've been in this shop all my life. I want to get a bit of time for me and the wife.

"You don't get your holidays when you live at the shop and work for yourself.

"I've got my cousin Des, he's 62, and Fred who helps me out, he's in his 70s. I can't keep putting on them."

Mr Dent admitted the cost of living crisis was also a factor in his decision.

Hilgay butcher Ali Dent has found a heart shaped potato in his shop, in time for Valentine's Day. Picture: Matthew Usher. (Image: © Archant Norfolk 2013)

"It's the electric as well," he said. "The electric's terrible, it's gone up three times this year.

"If you're butchering, your fridges and your freezers are on all the time.

"They reckon it's going to cost us £12,000 next year just for the electric."

Hilgay butcher Ali Dent is collecting gnomes for charity raising funds for the Norfolk Hospice. Picture: Matthew Usher. (Image: © ARCHANT NORFOLK 2016)

The gradual decline in trade, as people who grew up in the village with parents using the village shop - first opened by Bill Dent around 1900 - move away, has also been a factor.

Supermarkets and the internet have been the death knell for village shops. Delivery vans from Tesco, Sainsbury's and the like are now more common than tractors on the main road through Hilgay.

Ali Dent is adding a giant duck race to the Hilay Raft Race event on the 13th July. Picture: Matthew Usher. (Image: © Archant Norfolk 2014)

Mr Dent, who has survived both a stroke and meningitis, was made an MBE in 2006 in recognition of his efforts to raise funds for charity.

HIs annual second hand book sales have raised £200,000 over four decades, while he is not certain how much other events, ranging from collecting gnomes to duck races on the river have raised.

Ali Dent is collecting knitted toys to sell in aid of the Norfolk Hospice as he makes plans to retire (Image: Chris Bishop)

He plans to continue with his charitable work and is currently collecting knitted figures for a mammoth woolly wall which will be sold off for the Norfolk Hospice.

He also hopes to rent the shop out to a new generation of village stalwart.