When did greeting cards become so rubbish?

When I heard that WH Smith was going to disappear from our high streets, I became a nostalgic mess. I was transported back to childhood trips to buy pencil cases before each school year began, weekend visits to browse football magazines, some of which I even bought, and those late December expeditions, feeling loaded as I arrived clutching the WH Smith tokens I’d been given for Christmas. God bless those generous, if not always imaginative, relatives! There’s still time to nip in and buy an Easter card before they shut their doors, but frankly, given how dreadful most greeting cards have become, why bother?

The truth is that our love affair with the high street hero went sour ages ago. We started buying the stuff they sold online, and they responded by draining the charm out of their stores, which became cramped and ugly, with automated checkouts asking if we wanted chocolate or a broadsheet paper with our biros.