Letter to the Editor

More childhood nostalgia from us oldies.

Dear Ray,

May I say how much I enjoyed Ron Watts' article about shopping in the 1930's? It brought back so many memories of when I was a child in the late 30's and during the war years when we lived not far from Wimbledon.

Regarding house deliveries, strangely unlike Ron, the greengrocer was the only person who did not deliver, which necessitated many trips a week to his shop. The baker came early every morning, as did the horse-drawn milk-cart. A Monday visit to the butcher sorted out the every-other-day deliveries of our meat requirement, by bike. The grocer was very go-ahead and has an Austin 7 van which came to us a bout twice a week.

Like Ron, we had a Tesco start up, not much bigger than the Stoke Ferry Corner Shop. It too was looked down on as being a bit cheap and nasty. Further down the street was Sainsbury's, a high-class establishment boasting two long marble counters where their wares, mainly meat, poultry and dairy goods, were displayed. The quality was good and the prices matched it, hence Mum rarely went there as she could not afford to. How things have changed.

Finally, from a child's point of view, the highlight of the day was the arrival in the road of the Walls "Stop-me-and-buy-one" ice cream tricycle. Ice cream has never tasted the same since and much of my pocket money went on those delicious 3d (1 1/4 pence) wafers.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Forster