How Convenient?
Posted By Judith on 17th February 2017
This week I thought I’d have a change and get my shopping delivered and as one of the big supermarkets will deliver all my requirements at a time of my choosing for the princely sum of £2.00 it would be rude not to.
Since I retired I usually go and do one big shop per week and having branches of 3 of the best known names on the high street within a 10 mile radius I have plenty of choice.
However there is no question that a delivery service which costs only £2 is excellent both in terms of convenience and value for money, not to mention heavy items brought right into your kitchen.
But let’s be honest, even doing the one big shop myself is hardly irksome, with everything I need under one roof and easily accessible by car.
We think we’ve got ‘convenience’ cracked in the 20/21st centuries and to a great extent we have, but was it really so ‘inconvenient’ before? Perhaps not, as I discovered when I took another trip down memory lane.
We lived in a built up suburb of Halifax in West Yorkshire and as a child I would often run errands for my Mum or my Grandma and Grandad.
There was a good variety of merchandise to be had within easy walking distance of home even for a small girl.
There was Mr Barraclough the green grocer, Brooksbank’s bread shop and Beaton’s small family run bakery and bread shop, where my Grandad bought enough bread in a week to feed a medium sized army.
Mrs Garside ran the grocers, where you could buy Ben Shaws Dandelion and Burdock in returnable glass bottles, (you see we even did recycling!) whilst Mr and Mrs Grey ran the Post Office followed swiftly by Mr and Mrs Ogden.
Miss Davies and Miss Walker had the local sweet shop. They sold ‘sweet cigarettes’ and ‘Love Hearts’ and in summer you could get ‘Walls’ ice cream in square cornets or wafers if you were older.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to sell ice cream sandwiched between 2 pieces of cardboard in the height of summer? There was an art to eating a wafer.
Flavour choices were limited, it was either vanilla or Neapolitan in a family block, as for ice lollies most were orange, until strawberry mivvis came along, which were a revelation.
Then there was George Holt the butcher. Here is a picture of me in around 1957 making friends on his doorstep,
even in those days I was showing all the classic symptoms of the ‘mad cat lady’!
Gladys Bartlett owned the haberdashers and if you were prepared to wander slightly further afield there was an off-licence and Ronnie Priestley’s fish and chip shop.
For a special treat my Mum and Dad would occasionally share a bottle of stout and Janice and I each had a small bottle of ‘Britvic’ pineapple juice, which cost 1s 3d each in old money (6p in new). Why on earth do I remember such a thing?!
If all of that wasn’t enough there was an endless supply of free saw-dust available at Windle’s joinery yard just around the corner, if you happened to own a pet rabbit or hamster.
Finally our milk was delivered by Mr Town the farmer (!) and if we sprang a leak his brother Mr Town the plumber would fix it for us. It’s beginning to sound like a game of ‘Happy Families’ or the cast list from ‘Camberwick Green’ or ‘Trumpton’.
Our family didn’t get a car until 1960 and even then I don’t remember going shopping in it because we didn’t need to. Even the doctor and dentist (Humphreys and Brayshaw respectively) were within easy walking distance.
So there we are. Growing up in the late 50’s early 60’s was really quite convenient after all.
