AOL.co.uk

As culture shocks go, they were pretty seismic. When rising US soul sensation Jalen Ngonda first left his Maryland home to study music in Liverpool in 2014, he flew via Dublin, where he required a 24-hour stopover. “I’d never seen vast amounts of Irish people, going from, like, a black and Latino neighbourhood in Maryland to seeing just white people. That’s a shock but in a very inviting way,” the 32-year-old explains. “I just felt so enamoured. I was, like, ‘Oh man, I’m in a different part of the world. I’m out of America.’”

The decline of the British high street over the last few years has meant that many stores have been forced to shut certain branches, or go under completely. And it's sadly not showing any signs of slowing down, with several companies announcing closures over the past week or so.

A popular Marks and Spencer store has confirmed it will close for good next month. However, locals are not "letting it go without a fight" with a petition launched to save the supermarket.

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