So many shops closing, so much online shopping

Must read before posting. Comma missing after 'what' then 'who had a special order in'

I worked in the china dept and absolutely loved it. I learned a lot about our stock but also about our customers : who collected what it had put in a special order for something. Obviously, I was very junior and scared stiff of the buyer.

Yes. That's true, Aveline.
I suppose i was thinking about the "high street" that most of us knew in small towns. They were largely made up of independent stores (and a co-op maybe). Bigger towns such as Colchester or Derby had department stores of course...

I do remember when staff in our closest department store definitely knew things though. I expect you did in the 70s? Obviously "Saturday girls" couldn't know everything but I definitely have a feeling they were not 100% unsupervised and were able to ask someone else if you wanted to know something that they weren't sure about.

There was definitely a lot more help available then it seems to me. And (it seems) more knowledge.
This is what we were paying for.

What area did you work in Aveline - and do you think you had a good understanding of the products?
My retail experience is only of small shops only.

Surely that would only apply to small shops Not spaghetti. I certainly had nothing to do with stock purchase in the department store where I worked in the 1970s.

Going back to the shops, I think in the "old days" that because the person who served you in them was the same person who had ordered the goods, they did tend to know a lot more about them.

In about 1991 I went to buy a kettle for a friend and the shopkeeper had actually tried out the kettles and showed me the ones that were the easiest to pour! Now, most staff have nothing to do with purchasing and don't even know what's been ordered.

What I'd quite like is a few staff behind the green baize door..

I watched something the other day and heard a new term (to me)for a combined downstairs toilet/utility room/store cupboard. Apparently it’s now a Lootility.

We call ours the cupboard under the stairs! It’s shelved to store spare tins and dry foodstuff, olive oil, spare lightbulbs, home made chutneys and prescription drugs.

We have a pantry that is about 5-6 feet across and floor to ceiling. I’ve recently had drawers put in it for ease of access. I always thought the word was just an old fashioned term for a kitchen cupboard that contains food - a bit like ‘parlour’ for sitting room. A larder, to me, would have at least two outside walls and be used instead of (or as well as, these days) a fridge.

We put soft fruit and veggies in the fridge and lately even bread because it goes mouldy in the heat in Summer. It’s not a super big fridge but we have another old one outside for drinks . I suppose it depends on where you live. We have a large inbuilt cupboard I suppose you might call a pantry ( but we don’t ) . At least the fruit shops survive here!

J52

We turned our pantry which has a window into the downstairs loo. Far more useful!

Must have been quite a big pantry. All the ones I have known have been about 3 foot square. Far too small to become a cloakroom.

Mind you in DD's 1920s Garden City council house there was a coal store next to the front door. It was very efficient, a hatch outside to tip the coal through, then a door in the hall for accessing the coal from inside when you needed it. In most houses, including hers, the coal hole is now the cloakroom.

We turned our pantry which has a window into the downstairs loo. Far more useful!

NotSpaghetti

watermeadow our biggest and coolest pantry was also in an estate labourers cottage. It was a tiny Victoria semi - but the pantry was pretty big!

The pantry in our terraced townhouse had a marble slab in it but it was basically a cupboard by the door into the back yard, shut off from the kitchen.

The pantry in my parent's house (built in 1950) was in-between size and had a stone slab - not marble, but it also had tiled, external walls.

I have called them all "pantry" rather than "larder" as that is what others have called them, and also, because "larder" always suggests meat to me.

Incidentally ours have only ever been used for foodstuffs. I have never kept crockery or cooking utensils in them!

Apologies for my pantry "sideline" derailing the thread somewhat, nanna8

No apologies necessary.

I'm always interested in what I read - my home includes an old fashioned pantry, larder, and a new modern huge fridge freezer.

And a trade entrance that my grandparents had need of. Quite useful for grocery and Amazon deliveries - things change, they stay the same!

watermeadow our biggest and coolest pantry was also in an estate labourers cottage. It was a tiny Victoria semi - but the pantry was pretty big!

The pantry in our terraced townhouse had a marble slab in it but it was basically a cupboard by the door into the back yard, shut off from the kitchen.

The pantry in my parent's house (built in 1950) was in-between size and had a stone slab - not marble, but it also had tiled, external walls.

I have called them all "pantry" rather than "larder" as that is what others have called them, and also, because "larder" always suggests meat to me.

Incidentally ours have only ever been used for foodstuffs. I have never kept crockery or cooking utensils in them!

Apologies for my pantry "sideline" derailing the thread somewhat, nanna8

'Pantry' and 'larder' became synonymous. In my childhood I heard both words used by people to describe the same feature.

I have been reduced to ditionary definitions - and the reputable dictionaries are many. and they consistently come up with one of two definitions

a small room or cupboard in which provisions , cooking utensils , etc, are kept

a room or set of rooms in a large household in which bread and other provisions are kept.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

I’ve always associated a “ pantry” with affluent households whereas more ordinary households would have a “larder”.
I think I must have gained that impression from my childhood reading as at home in the 1960s we just had a “kitchen cupboard” ( and a fridge) .

Here’s the OED entry for “ pantry”:

“Originally: a room or set of rooms in a large household in which bread and other provisions are kept. Later also: a room used for storing china, silverware, table linen, and glass; = butler's pantry n. Now usually: a large cupboard or small room in which provisions, crockery, cutlery, table linen, etc., are kept.”

I didn’t know a pantry was a sign of affluence. I live in a 2 up, 2 down labourer’s cottage which was the cheapest house in the town when I bought it.
It’s very cold and draughty but I’ll try to feel smug instead of warm.

The bungalow I was born in, in the early 50’s, had a pantry.

The ‘kitchen’ was just the ‘scullery’ though, where we washed up. There was a drop down shelf that the dirty crockery was put on. A very small area.

The ‘living room’ was known as the ‘kitchen’, where we got dressed when we were small, (near the fire in the winter), where we ate our meals, where we watched tv when we finally acquired one.

The ‘front’ or ‘best’ room was hardly ever used, as it meant lighting another fire. No central heating, which is why the whole family was always squashed in the ‘kitchen’.

Most of the victorian houses I've lived in have had pantries and I've loved them.. I also had a fridge in the kitchen.. but pantries allow you to keep stuff dry and cool.
My little victorian house that I live in now sadly doesn't have one or off street parking and yet it is the most expensive house of all.. It really depends on location as Monica says..

I felt like that too M0nica.

I thought when I mentioned a pantry originally that I was following up Nora's comment
How did my granny survive without a refrigerator.
I know we were the last of our friends to get a fridge and/or freezer - ...simply because we had a pantry - and that meant we could manage without one for longer.
That's all.

RosieandherMaw

Just that it’s easy to say “I have a pantry” or “I have a cellar “ (I used to have one and it was invaluable) when modern houses
a) are not built with one because of demands of space
b) have more appliances than our mothers/grandmothers had
c) are generally much warmer than a generation ago
d) may now have , if we are lucky, utility rooms instead but that may house a boiler and be too warm for fresh food storage.
Just as we no longer have meat safes, keep our milk in a bowl of cold water or our butter on a marble slab - kitchens have , for the most part, changed except for those living in period houses with kitchens, sculleries, larders and pantries behind that green baize door.

Yes, but why does all the above mean someone is being 'smug' and why the comparison with people in towns who have lots of off road parking and a garage.

Quite often in posts on all types of thread someone will comment on something they have or used to have that helped answer the problem. it is merely a comment

Even in the post above you say
^ kitchens have , for the most part, changed except for those living in period houses with kitchens, sculleries, larders and pantries behind that green baize door.^

As I pointed out that is not true, even in the 1930s most houses were built with pantries and certainly most of those millions of little terrace houses built in the 19th century did, as well as DD's 1920s ex-council house and 1950s ex-council flat both had had one, a small brick walled cupboard about 3 foot squareCome to that so did my parents 2 bed retirement bungalow built in 1961.

Pantries really only disappeared in the 1960s with the rollout of fitted kitchens and the almost universal presence of refrigerators in British homes.

I am sorry but both your posts, apart from being incorrect, read much more that you were saying that pantry = lots of parking = equals rich people boasting.

Just that it’s easy to say “I have a pantry” or “I have a cellar “ (I used to have one and it was invaluable) when modern houses
a) are not built with one because of demands of space
b) have more appliances than our mothers/grandmothers had
c) are generally much warmer than a generation ago
d) may now have , if we are lucky, utility rooms instead but that may house a boiler and be too warm for fresh food storage.
Just as we no longer have meat safes, keep our milk in a bowl of cold water or our butter on a marble slab - kitchens have , for the most part, changed except for those living in period houses with kitchens, sculleries, larders and pantries behind that green baize door.

Mum and Dad bought their first fridge in 1959. I was nearly 2y old, she was expecting my brother and fed up having to shop every day.

As a child in the 60s I remember my Granny having a tall, pale blue, round topped, gas-powered fridge that lived in the dining room. We children thought it was amazing!

My Grandma had a pantry off the hall as M0nica describes. It had an air brick to the outside to keep it cold.
I can't remember her having a fridge, though presumably she did in later years.

What did you mean then RosieandherMaw?

It's not just M0nica who failed to get your point...

...undoubtedly because I've had a pantry

“You” sorry!