A retiring shop-owner has spoken of seeing the best and worst of the community after battling off gunpoint robbers in his family’s convenience store.

Rasik and Dharmi Patel have run Lynn’s Newsagents for 36 years in Grosvenor Park Road, Walthamstow but have announced their retirement this week after a series of robberies and the “slowing down” of business in the area.

The grandfather described the dramatic moment two years ago when a robber burst into his shop brandishing a gun alongside being attacked by a gang armed with a hammer.

He said: “I didn’t think the gun was real so I tried to protect my business.

“I got into a struggle with him and he shot, narrowly missing me and the bullet went into my wall. The hole is still there.

“I managed to chase him out with a stick.

“Fortunately, my wife wasn’t there but she was so worried about me, I was very lucky that day.”

“I have been robbed so many times in the last couple of years, including being attacked by a gang with a hammer, it is getting really scary.”

Mr Patel, now 67, moved to Walthamstow from India in 1979 to live above the convenience store, where he has raised his two children.

“The biggest difficulty was the language, I barely spoke English but managed to get a bank loan to start it up. Still my English is not very good”, he joked.

“Orford Road has changed so much, when I first came here it was full of empty buildings, but it is a lovely area now.

“Business has been getting slower and I was getting worried about the mini-Holland scheme closing the roads and preventing passing traffic, so I think it is a good time to get out now.”

Customers are hosting a farewell event at the shop and Mr Patel said his fantastic relationship with them was a source of pride.

He said: “I love them and we will miss them very much with all our hearts. I have seen children grow up and start bringing their own kids in here, time goes so quickly.”

Mr Patel is unsure of the future of the shop once he retires and said he could develop the ground floor into a flat.

“But first I plan to relax for a while, I am glad I won’t have to get up at 5am anymore to get the papers delivered”, he said.