The development and spread of superstores coincides almost exactly with the 40 years I have been working as a journalist. My first years as a reporter were punctuated by a series of major planning inquiries at which Sainsbury’s — it was generally Sainsbury’s in those days — fought for permission to build ever-larger shops, invariably with huge car parks.

They always won, which is why, over the same period of my life in ink, I have witnessed and reported with great sadness the steady decline of our town and city centres.

The inquiries struck me (and others) as something of a circus. A regular team appeared for Sainsbury and Tesco — once they got in on the act around here. The planning inspectors, of course, knew them very well. Their leader was a barrister affluent even by the standards of his profession. He came in a huge limousine bringing well-rehearsed arguments against which the improvised opposition of local people was powerless.

When I arrived in Oxford the acme of local supermarkets was — how comical it seems now! — the Sainsbury’s in the Westgate Centre. The company’s old shop in the High was still at that time . . . well, a shop, where you were served by white-coated staff and butter was sold loose.

That soon went, and in the next few years we saw both the Heyford Hill superstore and another at Kidlington. Tesco competed with shops in Abingdon and later Cowley, which is one I have rarely used because of its difficulty of access from the ring road. In a sane world would this ever have been permitted in the way it is?

Having effectively eliminated other food shops in the centre of Oxford — where now the Co-op, Mac Fisheries, Dewhurst and Woolworth’s? — the supermarket giants were ready to move in themselves.

This week Tesco opened not one but two new branches in the city, as is reported elsewhere in The Oxford Times today. Sainsbury, of course, already has its shop in Magdalen Street.

Was I alone in noting the cynicism shown by Tesco in celebrating its arrival by doling out cash to a couple of good causes like some Victorian-style Lady Bountiful?

Except, of course, not very bountiful. Donations are clearly fixed by the company’s bosses on some sliding scale according to the shop’s size. Thus it was £500 for Helen and Douglas House in respect of the Tesco Express in St Aldate’s but £1,000 for the Gatehouse homeless project to mark the opening of the larger Tesco Metro in Magdalen Street.

Such acts of corporate ‘generosity’ would be better conducted in the style traditionally associated with the true philanthropist — anonymously.

The Covered Market — and long may it continue in business — is one of the few ports of call in Oxford for those who want to support local traders.

Those who want to save money would be well advised to do as I do and buy a proportion of their staples at Aldi, off the Botley Road. Rather later than many of my West Oxford neighbours, I discovered how exceptionally cheap it is to shop there — and how very good are many of its products.

Cold meats are among its best and cheapest lines. I am always impressed, too, by the quality of its fruit and vegetables.

When one speaks of savings, incidentally, I am not talking about an odd penny here and there. A large carton of fat-free yogurt, for example, is 44p, about a third of what I had been used to paying at Tesco.

I can also get there by bike.