LISTEN, I completely understand. I loved Whole Foods too. In 2005 my then boyfriend and I took a road trip across America listening to Fleetwood Mac and staying in $6-a-night hotels.

Stopping off at a Whole Foods Market meant free food samples of things we couldn’t otherwise afford on our shoestring budget - fresh guacamole and fancy cheeses and something amazing called parfait.

When Whole Foods opened in Giffnock I was excited. It was a chance to travel back in time for a brief spell and pretend to be again in America, in the summer, with no responsibilities and a two-seater car. On a first trip along to Fenwick Road I found that even though I was no longer on a shoestring budget, I still couldn’t afford anything the store was hawking.

Lidl, however, presents no such hurdle. You can come away with a circular saw, a gazebo, a punnet of blueberries, smoked salmon, a four man tent and still have change from a tenner.

Giffnock does not know the glories that awaits it, that first time they pop in for a pint of semi-skimmed and come out with a canoe.

Much more useful - and a tale to dine out on - than a sachet of ashwagandha powder and a jar of sambal oelek.

I’m going to go a bit controversial now on the whole “Lidl comes to Giffnock” story. If you missed it - and, if so, where have you been - upmarket supermarket Whole Foods closed and in its stead is to be a Lidl.

The goodfolk of Giffnock took to Facebook to complain with choice gripes being: “If you want to keep Giffnock’s reputation of prosperity then we need action to stop this. If I wanted cut-price, poor-quality goods I would travel to a poor-quality neighbourhood to find them.”

Or how about: “I understand that they need to shop somewhere, however you didn’t see benefit cheats and single mothers and their feral brood flock to Whole Foods.”

The word “vermin” was also used. Posh locals in middle-class meltdown, was the general jist of it.

If you’re going online to publicly call working class people vermin then might I suggest you take a minute to think about the words people will be using to describe you. Hint: they’re not the sort of words nanny would have permitted.

Thing is, I’m quite sure there’s a snobbish element to Giffnock who had no intention of shopping in Whole Foods but who liked it being there because it confirmed their beliefs about their community: exclusive, middle class, respectable, desirable, aspirational.

Having a Lidl tells them they’re no different from anywhere else and they don’t like it.

I’m also quite sure the vast majority of Giffnock gives no hoots about the introduction of Lidl. They’re quite pleased at the notion of a £3 bottle of Champagne and a decent Chateau Petrus for £4.20.

The middle classes love a bit of naughty slumming it. There have been opinion pieces spanning years now about posh types sneaking into Lidl and Aldi for bargains and then boasting to their chums at dinner parties about how they’ll never believe the price of the Montepulciano they’re sipping from Villeroy and Boch glasses.

It’ll become the done thing to split your shop between Waitrose in Newton Mearns and Lidl in Giffnock.

The problem with the story is that it was so believable. Giffnock revolting on mass at the introduction of a cut price supermarket, the snobs driving to East Ren Council’s HQ in their Land Rovers to shout “down with this sort of thing” at planning officials.

People love a class war. They love a bit of us and them. There’s an issue with stereotypes on both sides.

Giffnock, you have an image problem. Scotland thinks you are woeful buffoons who hate the working classes. Are you going to prove us wrong?