Last updated 13:18, Friday, 25 January 2008

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“On the one hand there’s no way you should consider it your patriotic duty to go shopping,” was his worthy advice in a worrying week. “On the other, retail sales are vital to an economy driven by consumer spending and if we all stop buying, problems will deepen. So, carry on shopping but don’t borrow too much and spend what you think you can afford...”

Which is three hands, I believe. Only at the BBC could surplus parts be so routinely acceptable. No wonder Jeremy’s knickers don’t fit.

More clarity was delivered by my dangerous shopping friend, who was in attacking mood when she barked like a wartime general ordering military operations in North Africa.

“You and I are going to have to clear up the tail end of these sales in Carlisle,” she said in a commanding call to dirty-job-but-someone-has-to-do-it duty.

“I’ve seen what’s there and we have to go. I’ll pick you up Saturday morning. Don’t expect to be home for lunch.”

I couldn’t quite decide whether she was being Field Marshall Montgomery directing the D-Day landings or Aggie MacKenzie ordering a sweep-up of leftover bargains making Carlisle look untidy. Whoever she was that day, she was in no mood for argument. I promised to be ready early and prepared to rise to what was clearly going to be my patriotic duty – whatever the BBC might think.

Needless to say, we did it. Needless because you probably saw us doing it. Lots did and most enjoyed sniping jokes at our expense, though thankfully we’d lost track of the expense by then. Monty had convinced me to concentrate only on what we’d saved by shopping at sales prices.

Pointing to our numerous bags and laughing, total strangers made wise-cracking remarks about shopping and dropping, sang “There may be trouble ahead...” accused us of having much too much fun by virtue of no men at home or simply gasped: “My God!” as we staggered.

It was the most patriotically dutiful I’d felt since learning to tie a reef knot in the Brownies and carrying the standard at church parade.

We swept through The Lanes, House of Fraser, Jaeger and Lord knows where else, until finally sweeping out of Hoopers only for fear of being locked into our car park.

“Good grief, it’s dark!” said Monty, clearly quite alarmed. In times of national crisis Field Marshalls have bigger concerns than incidental passage of time and she’d failed to register the tick-tocking of eight and a half hours with 15 minutes for lunch. My aching feet had not.

There’s something about looming crisis and threatened depression that brings out the best in dutiful shoppers. My mother used to buy tins of peaches when snow was forecast, my grandmother would brave the most dreadful storms to stock up on Carnation Milk – just in case. PMT would send my sister-in-law on a trolley-dash swoop on Marks & Spencer’s ready meals. Having shopped habitually in a monthly-crazed frenzy for a couple of years, she began to realise she had a problem and knew it was time to address it. She bought a bigger freezer.

Our sister paper the News & Star reported faithfully that in Denton Holme on Monday, when the rains came to threaten life and property: “Queues formed in the Co-op shop in Denton Street with people scrambling to buy bottles of water, food and cigarettes.”

There’s a queue I can relate to; a need I can associate with; an imagery that says as much about the proud, stoical spirit of the British as a Union Flag at full mast.

“The floods are coming Mabel. Best get in line for some Benson & Hedges. And don’t forget the matches.Who knows when we’ll next get the chance?”

Monty and I, sensing unease in the markets, nervous of the effects of US credit crunching, wary of rumoured global recession, bought shoes – and skirts and tops and a couple of jackets, sweaters, a dress, coats, trousers, perfume and handbags. Well, there’s a war on, you know. Who knows when we’ll next get the chance?

There are few crises in this life from which shopping can’t deliver us – though it’s not for the faint-hearted, which tends to explain Jeremy Paxman’s discomfort.

Rather than hit the shops for new knickers that fit snuggly and securely, the infamously snarling Newsnight interrogator harangued Sir Stuart Rose about falling standards in Marks and Spencer’s pants department.

And there’s the proof, see? Jeremy is not nearly so fearless as he’d have us believe. Those of us more used to weathering hardships and ill-fitting knickers know the real deal of courage. It is that when the going gets rough – only the tough go shopping.