IT is amazing to think that Booths Music Shop in Bolton could be the oldest of its type in the world.

Three brothers, Thomas, James and George Booth, set up the shop in 1832 - the same year Frederic Chopin gave his first concert in Paris.

The current owner of the shop, in Churchgate, Tony Aspinall, is George's great-great-great grandson. The shop partly owes its success to its friendly and knowledgeable staff, who give high quality personal service.

But even Booths has had to move with the times, and the shop now has a strong internet presence, with business split evenly between shop and online sales.

We wish Booths all the best for the future, and wish the future looked as hopeful for other traditional shops - some of which are threatened by internet trading and supermarkets.

Take the news that Music Zone in Bolton, one of 104 in the country, has called in administrators, following poor trading conditions over the Christmas period. Owners admit that the growth in online trading has also hit them hard.

But supermarkets must shoulder a fair part of the blame, as they use low prices as loss leaders to encroach on other, often smaller, businesses - just look at what happened when they started selling CDs.

As a country, we have let supermarkets rampage out of control, and now many small local businesses could be lost forever as the big chains ruthlessly use their greater economic clout to grab an ever bigger share of a dwindling market.

Let us hope, for Booths' sake, that they never start selling musical instruments or sheet music.