When Memories Take Over

The other afternoon I was listening to a podcast about the development of supermarkets, and my mind shot right back to my teens, when I used to help out at the grocery shop of W Bale & Son.  It was actually two shops in one, 2-3 Market Place, and it had two front doors - well, three actually, since there was another one in the closed, warehouse end that had been no. 2.  Customers only saw the actual shop, no.3, and being right on the corner, overlooking the market place, it was usually bright and sunny.

Entering by the door further from the corner you had to go down a couple of steps to floor level, and were immediately beside the bacon slicer.  This shining silver and red machine was cleaned every evening by one of the two men who ran the shop, Geoffrey and Cyril.  It was operated by turning a big handle at the far end, as a result of which a system of gears and levers moved the carriage from one end to the other of the bed, and each turn of the handle moved it slightly to the left, and nearer to the circular blade that revolved with a constant whirr as the handle went round.  On the carriage were either two or four poles, between which lay a side of bacon, or a big ham, held firmly in place by a set of fierce metal teeth, part of a securing cover which slid up and down on the poles.

I was always fascinated to watch the rhythmic motion of the men, swinging to and fro as one hand turned the handle while the other caught the rashers as they fell from the blade.  These in turn were swung with equal precision onto a sheet of greaseproof placed there for the purpose.  When by their judgement enough slices had accumulated to make the required weight, this was moved swiftly to the scale, and checked.  Maybe another slice was required, and then he would wrap it up in one smooth movement, tucking in the last end and placing it on the counter facing the customer, as the other hand reached for the ubiquitous pencil perched on his ear, ready to write the price on the outside.  Meanwhile he was already asking, "... something else, Mrs Brown?"  Never a moment was lost, in those days when there was personal service for everyone.

By the time I was about thirteen, I was already familiar with the shop, since my mother had worked there before I was born, and I'd been taken there regularly from a toddler.  It had been suggested that I go and help out for the weeks when Geoffrey, Cyril and their colleague Roly who drove the van, took their annual summer holidays.  At two weeks each, that would nicely occupy me during the long and boring weeks off school.  I was put to gentle duties like shelf-filling, and taking orders around the town on the trade bike, which was brought out of retirement and cleaned up for the occasion.

The customers were the predictable mixture of 'old faithfuls' who lived in the town and called in on a daily or weekly basis, younger families living on the council estates to the east and south-east of the town centre, and farmers and the rural elite from the surrounding villages.  Some would take their groceries with them; others would have them delivered.  One lady from Kenninghall or Fersfield sent her chauffeur, and there was a delightful chap who would have done P G Wodehouse proud, who arrived with a monocle and a limp, and pronounced his greeting, " 'Morning, Mr Hubbard! 'Morning Mr Haystead!" [to Roly] "Hello, young man!"  In turn I too received my due ... a silent smile.  I believe he was an 'Honourable', and had a place in "Who's Who".

On my first day behind the scenes, I was shown round the store, and then introduced to a manually operated coffee grinder located on the second floor by a beautiful oriel window overlooking the churchyard.  The premises were quite straightforward.  Each of the two shops consisted of living accommodation above a sales floor.  There was access between the two on the ground and first floors, but above that they were independent.  Because of the slope of the ground, the back doors were on the first floor, and opened onto the churchyard.  We normally used the back door of no.2, beside which was a tiny kitchen, while the rear of no. 3 led to what had once been a little veranda.  It was by that time a dark and dingy place and home to vast colonies of spiders, whose webs seemed to be everywhere.  It was secured to the outside by vertical shutters at the foot of two or three steps that ran the length of the shop; between these and the back door was a kind of rough storage area, secure but open to the elements.  This was where the bike lived.

Behind this almost unused door there were two rooms, the windows of which had been bricked up, so they were always dark, and illuminated when required by lone, unshaded electric bulbs  In one was kept sugar and biscuits, and in the other a variety of tinned fruit, jams and marmalades.  When it was delivered, the ordinary, granulated sugar arrived at the back door in brown paper packages each containing fourteen two-pound bags.  On the next floor were two more rooms, bright and airy, with a big window overlooking the market place, which were used to store coffee and tea, sweets and chocolate.  My first task that morning was to fill the coffee drawer with powder freshly ground from beans emptied from a one- or two-pound bag into the machine. 

When it was full, the drawer was carried down two flights of stairs to its place in the long wooden counter which ran most of the length of the shop.  There was a gap in the middle of the counter to allow access to the 'staff area' behind it, and at the end nearer the bacon slicer was a small office.  As well as coffee, the drawers underneath the counter contained rice, sugar of many kinds, and a variety of dried fruit.  When they were empty, or in slack times, simply running low, they were carried upstairs, refilled and returned.  On this brown wooden counter stood the magnificent cash register, with its sliding markers for pounds, shillings and pence.  Once the correct amount was set, the handle was turned rapidly and the cash drawer opened.  Change was counted up into the hand of the customer, as I've described elsewhere.

Past the office door was a small passage up a couple of steps that led into the ground floor of no.2, and its little-used front door.  I only saw it opened for two regular purposes.  One was the loading of the delivery van from wooden racks that filled most of this former shop area, where the orders were placed once picked.  The other reason for opening this door was when bacon and cheese was delivered, for at the far end there was a great refridgerated cupboard, and the delivery driver would carry the bacon straight from the lorry to the fridge.  At the back of no.2 was a brick arch, through which two or three steps gave access to a small dark cellar, which was actually beneath the churchyard.  Here the cheeses were stored until required.  As the level of custom in the shop allowed, one of the men would take a sharp knife and go into the fridge to remove the bones from the bacon, packing them into a small cardboard box.  One of my less pleasant duties when I was there involved carry this box round the corner to the abbatoir in Chapel St, where I was thankful to leave them in a pre-arranged corner, just inside the door.

Access to the third floor of no.2 was by means of a staircase at the far end, small enough almost to be a spiral, and one of my abiding memories is of struggling up and down those stairs with a box containing 36 giant packets of Kelloggs Cornflakes.  The two topmost floors of no.3 and the top floor of no.2 were all empty, and some of them were still covered with wallpaper from their time as bedrooms.

In the shop there seemed to be a place for everything, and of course everything had to be in its place.  Across the middle of the ceiling, just in front of the counter, was a shelf for the cereals, with lots of cornflakes at one end, and porage oats at the other.  In between were the usual varieties that were advertised on TV and favourite with the children, like Frosties and Rice Krispies, Sugar Puffs and Shreddies; and beside the Weetabix ... do you remember the yellow boxes of Force Wheat Flakes, with a picture of Sunny Jim on the front, vaulting a gate?  In front of this shelf, the ceiling was supported by two metal columns that helped to bear the weight of the four floors above, and the furniture of the shop was completed by a seat in front of the counter where the more elderly customers could rest their legs whilst waiting to be served.

As the week progressed, not only did the constant flow of people through the shop receive the personal service to which they were accustomed, but phone calls from isolated farms would be recieved in the office and answered with orderbook and pen, providing lists from which their requirements could be picked and packed ready for the regular deliveries.  There were four specific rounds over the course of the week, one on Tuesdays to the villages north and north-east of the town, two on Thursdays to the north-west and south-west, and then one on Friday mornings to the south-east.  At holiday times, Roly was required in the shop, of during the day, of course, and so these had to be accommodated in the evenings, and it was my excitement to go along with him on these occasions, ostensibly to help and reduce the time they took.  More often than not, the customers were only too pleased to see a new face, and embarrassed me by their friendly interrogation.

During my time at the shop, I learned many skills that are of no use today, and have now passed into history.  These included (with varying degrees of proficiency) wrapping a wedge of cheese in a neat greaseproof parcel; later on I was even allowed - with guidance, and for known, tolerant customers - to cut it myself, using that wire that ran down the middle of the marble slab!  Similar progressions were made in other matters, such as pouring sugar or rice from the scalepan into a blue bag without spilling any, before folding the top of the bag so that none should spill out.  Then came the greatest test of all -wrapping a pound of ground coffee in a plain white paper.  This involved bringing up both sides and folding these edges together so as to form a sort of tube, but gently so as not to shoot the coffee all over the counter; then the whole was swung onto one end, trapping the coffee against the counter while the other end was folded in the manner of a sugar bag; and finally - great risk of spillage here - inverting the whole thing and tucking in the other end.  On many occasions my efforts weren't deemed roadworthy as I'd left them and had to be tied with string for safety!

What a field day the health and safety people would have in such a situation as this today.  Such a lot of risk assessments; the need for clean hands; and the carrying of heavy boxes up all those hazardous stairs!  And I'm sure the employment people would have been quick to prevent me going along voluntarily as I did on Saturdays when holiday cover couldn't justify my paid attendance, simply because I enjoyed the company and the activity!  Such vivid and happy memories - it's hardly possible that they were almost fifty years ago!