Chapter Twenty One – Local shops

We were very well off for local shops when I was small. Along Easton Road there was a Post Office, a haberdashery's called 'Peggy's' and a sweet shop. I used to go into the sweet shop once a week to collect my 'Bunty' comic and sometimes bought a Dandy or Beano. My dad loved the Beano because it was fun to read.  I often bought a bag of jelly babies as they were my favourite, I still love them now! I was often at Peggy's by the age of eleven, buying or fetching wool which had been set aside for mum. She knitted a lot when I was small. Peggy had a daughter the same age as my sister and they went to school together.

On the opposite side of Easton Road there was a small corner shop, which I think was empty. It was a rank of very old houses due to be demolished, to make way for a row of terraced modern 1960's houses, next to our church.

In Chelsea Road, a two minute walk away we had a rank of four shops containing a haberdashery shop, selling cotton reels, nylon stockings, wool and other items, a green grocers and then a chemist shop with a chemist called Feaver Jackson, a very unusual name. From what I remember, he was well respected.  The words 'Pharmacy' or 'Pharmacist' were not in use in those days.

Next to the chemist, on the corner, was a butcher's shop. We often went in there. The shop was painted white with a white counter where the butcher cut the meat. I think the floor was white as well. It was always covered in sawdust, possibly to soak up any blood which trickled down. I hated the smell of the blood and the meat and the sight of the animal carcasses hanging up on hooks. When I was older I asked if I could wait outside, which is what I did most of the time. Ugh! I'm surprised I'm a meat eater, I hated it so much! I expect the butcher thought to himself, 'Here's that little girl again, coming into my shop with that look of disgust on her face.' I can just imagine it! Ha, ha! I also remember large vans pulling into the side road full of animal carcasses for the shop. It was hideous!

Opposite the butchers on the other corner was another rank of shops. A Co-op store, (it was not there always, but later on when I was about nine). Then a hardware store, selling paraffin, brushes and all sorts of tools and watering cans. Next to that a grocery store where we bought vinegar, cheese and butter and odds and ends then a Post Office on the next corner. We didn't have a telephone in our house, but outside of the Post Office there was a red public telephone box next to a red post box.

Further on up Chelsea Road there was another grocers who sold broken biscuits and we sometimes went in to buy some. Then on the other side of the road nearer the top of Chelsea Road (near where Aunt Glad and Uncle Alf lived) a house made into a shop which sold carpeting, linoleum and rugs. Most people didn't have fitted carpets, it was too expensive. Mum had what she called 'runners,' which were narrow strips of carpeting to place on top of the linoleum in our hallway. We had rugs in each room and carpet runners up the stairs.

At that time Old Market was full of shops and was a car or bus ride away.  I think that was where the toy shop was where mum and dad took me to chose a doll. There was a baby shop called Hurwoods which was there for many, many years selling baby equipment, prams etc. It was one of the last shops in Old Market. On the way to Old Market there was a large shop which was once called the 'Penny Bazaar' (probably when my parents were young) which later became Woolworths. That closed down when I was about 13. And there was a Peacocks store selling cheap goods, something like the pound shops of today.

I can remember shops along Stapleton Road as well. One was a piano shop with a beautiful grand piano in the window! I wonder who on earth went in there to buy a grand piano! I can't imagine any of the hard working class people I knew having the money to buy one, (or the room to put one in their houses) although lots of people had an old piano in their front rooms.  A left over from the Victorian era, probably belonging to their great grandfathers.