Well-known independent newsagent issues emotional goodbye as he prepares to shut up shop after 47 years following ill health

Eugene Diamond of Diamonds in Broughshane Street, Ballymena, was speaking to the News Letter after revealing that Sunday, August 30, will be his final day in business.

Mr Diamond, aged 68, had said last year planned to put the shop up for sale, amid a bout of ill health.

It remains listed as ‘for sale’ by a local estate agency.

However, Mr Diamond said that the business has now “run its course” and he is retiring at the end of the month after 47 years of trading.

"Sadly in this day and age people aren’t as keen on running newsagents – though mine was a bit more than a newsagents,” he told the News Letter.

"It wasn’t all ‘take’ as far as I was concerned.

"You give a little back to the community, and they appreciated that."

Mr Diamond is known for his heavy use of Facebook and Twitter (X), where he posts daily collections of front and back pages of his various newspapers, along with shots of the weather at dawn.

Asked what the biggest headlines have been during his time, he said the “stand-outs” were Diana’s death, the Falklands War, the Brighton Bombing, the ceasefires and the peace in Northern Ireland.

"I’ve seen them all,” he said.

He said of the era when he started out: “The memories are wonderful. It was a different world.

"People walked when I went into business. Cars were minimal.

"I had a great mixture of people.

"At weekends you could have found your local building contractors, your bank managers, and your street cleaners and everybody in my shop, talking, and it was wonderful.

"Ballymena had a lot of factories then.

"Those businesses came and went in my time, which is very sad.

"Back when I started there were no Asdas, Supervalus.

"Ballymena, when I opened, had around 40 wee shops, and I could nearly name most of them.

"I’m the only surviving one. I’m the final one.”

He said at one time he was selling 1,200 to 1,400 papers a day, “and of that there would have been a lot of News Letters”.

Along the way he also sold a scratchcard which won a Ballymena punter £300,000.

He often worked seven days a week, opening at 5am and closing at 10am.

"Most days I was doing 12 to 14 hours,” he said.

"I really did enjoy it.”

Mr Diamond, who has a wife and a daughter, was “born and reared” in Ballymena; he originally hails from Harryville.

When he decided to put the shop up for sale last year he had been suffering “a bit of bad health”.

He was struck with “a paralysis-type thing” caused by cervical myelopathy, a condition where the spinal cord becomes compressed and damaged (“‘cervical’ just means the neck of something”, he added).

"I needed to have my neck bones removed and pins put in,” he said.

"I wasn’t in pain.

"This time last year I couldn’t use a pen or cut my own meat.

"That’s why I put the shop up for sale.

"But I’ve now had a new lease of life after great care in the Royal Victoria Hospital and massive surgery last October.

"I’m in my 69th year. I’ve not retired early. I’ve had a great life in my shop, and I loved it – I loved every day of it.

"But just the energy levels aren’t what they were when I was in my early 50s. Time has moved on.

"I’ve loved being there.

"I set my mind in June that September was the end, and I said to the people who needed to know at the time that I was closing.”

Asked what he will do next, he replied: "I’ve got to maybe have a bit of a holiday, and then we’ll take it from there.

"I’m going to take it a bit easier.

"I’ll maybe carry on with a bit of social media, because I’ve had a lot of requests to carry on with the morning weather pictures.

"I think I’ve worked long enough so I’ll take a bit of a rest for a while and see what to do.

"I like a bit of gardening, and my walking is coming back – this time last year I was sitting in a wheelchair getting pushed about.”

Sounding emotional, he concluded: “It’s tough, it really is.

"It’s hard to say goodbye to a lot of people.

"Though it is not goodbye – we will keep in touch.”