"WE are here for the long haul, we don't plan to make any major changes except to settle in and learn," said Tara Conabeare, who, with her husband, Paul are the new owners of Evans Newsagents at Crediton.

They have taken over the High Street shops from Bernie and Mary Miller who have retired. "We'd like to thank our staff who have been brilliant. In our first week the staff took care of everything. They ran the shop," added Paul.

Tara is a Crediton girl, going to school at Haywards and Queen Elizabeth's Community College. Her parents are Neil and Mary Hills-Harrop. Her grandmother, Bridget Denner, died this year aged 101.

Tara joined the staff of Westward Babywear on Mill Street on a YTS scheme from school becoming operations director 13 years later. She was with the company for 22 years but sadly it folded in 2008.

In 2009 she joined a branded babywear company in Topsham, but found she needed more of a challenge. She had missed so much of their two children growing up, and driving to Topsham to work was very different to driving from their Cheriton Fitzpaine home to Crediton.

"We had not planned to buy a newsagents but one day, scouring the net, wondering what sort of business might suit us, I saw this place was for sale," she said. " I thought 'I wonder...', did my sums, spoke to the bank and came to see Bernie and Mary.

"That was 18 months ago. We had to sell our house, which we did three months ago. Lloyds TSB have been extremely helpful from the first time we began talking about this.

"Elsa Hutchings, my business manager and I would sit down and try to think of ways to do this without selling the house; last year was not a good time to have a house on the market!

"The bank was very much behind us all the way, they helped us so much to get to this point. I talked to other banks, but I did not find that same level of service," said Tara.

Not only was there the house and business to sort out, Paul had been working for Kastner Exeter for 16 years and he thanks his boss for his understanding when he gave his notice.

A Cheriton Fitzpaine man, Paul's father worked for Denis Brinicombe. Paul has always been in the motor trade, working first for Brian Mears and then Kevin Mears at KJM on Four Mills Lane before moving to Volvo and Kastners.

Both Paul and Tara have been closely connected with Cheriton Fitzpaine AFC, Tara is still chairman, Paul previously managed the First Team.

Their 14 years old son Billy is a member of Crediton AFC and plays for Crediton Youth. He goes to QECC.

Their daughter Hollie has finished her first year studying Law at Southampton University. She helps in the shop and works at Next in Exeter.

Evans News is open from 5am-6pm Monday to Friday, 5am-5pm on Saturday and 5am-2pm on Sunday. Paul and Tara have seen a lot of those early mornings.

The shop has PayPoint, where customers can pay their television licence, utility bills such as gas, water, electricity, top up mobile telephones and pay for electric key charging.

They are also agents for a dry cleaning company, they print and develop photographs from film or digital, sell greetings cards, stationery, confectionery and much more, with their main shelf space being for newspapers and magazines.

Paul and Tara intend to spend as much time as they can "front of house" seeing customers. "It is important for Crediton High Street. We have both been here all our lives and know lots of people - and we like meeting our customers.

"Hopefully, we will provide them with a really good service, building on what Bernie and Mary did and, before them, Paul and Marion Evans," said Paul.

Nor is the name changing. Crediton will continue to see Evans News on the High Street.

Sue Read