Fancy a trip down memory lane?

I remember the broken biscuits in glass-topped boxes in our local grocer's shop.

My dad usually soled and heeled our shoes as he had his own last (he was actually an engineer).

In the 50s we bought a pint of winkles and cockles from a man on a bike.
Also from french men on bikes strings of onions. We lived on the south east coast so I expect they came over on the ferry from France.
But I used to go cockling in the local bay as well with a school friend . Havent had cockles for years and years.

Yes to broken biscuits in those boxes with lift up glass lids.
I think I loved being a child of the 50s.

Broken biscuits from Woolies
Bacon off cuts
Offal, and chicken giblets and chicken necks lots of meat on them but patience needed
Cobblers mending your shoes
Shops that sold hardware, loose screws, nails, tacks etc
Paint that could be mixed to desired colours
Wallpaper shops
Butchers with carcasses hanging up outside dripping blood onto the pavement
Butchers with sharp knives and cutting blocks
In my town a thriving fish industry
Music shops with listening booths where you could listen to the lastest hits (without buying them !)
Red telephone boxes where everyone queued at 6 pm when the price was cheaper.
Cycles everywhere especially when the factories shut for the day

My town still has a real cobbler. I took my shoes to him to get them reheeled only a few weeks ago - I do not mean Timpsons. He also repairs any kind of leatherwear. A rare survival.

I remember the broken biscuits in the glass topped tins.

Bacon offcuts have reappeared recently after being absent for decades. My local butcher and local farm shops offer them. They are now usually called 'lardons', the French word for bacon bits. The revival led by lots of people seeing them in French supermarkets and delis.

Most DIY stores these days mix your paint to order. It is quite fascinating to see all the different pigments needed to make any one colour

We still have a wet fish shop in our road, sells whelks, cockles, jellied eels along with a multitude of fresh fish and seafood.
We also have a cobblers and an independent hardware store (mixes paint to your preferred shade) in the same road.

We do have an independent butchers as well.

ferry23 - thanks for the link. It was fascinating and so nice to see pictures of things that most people didn't even think of taking a photo of, even if they had a camera. Developing pictures was expensive so people didn't normally spend money taking pictures of everyday things like this.

My favourite was the paraffin can being filled. I had to take two empty gallon cans round the corner to the shop and carry them home full. The design of the cans meant they cut into your fingers and were quite painful to carry due to the weight. Thankfully we didn't live too far from the shop or I don't know how I'd have managed. I was about 9-11 years old at the time.

Milk delivered by horse and cart, 3d back on empty pop bottles, ice cream from the Italian grocer collected in a bowl with t-towel cover and run home before it melted. I will watch later.

M0nica

My town still has a real cobbler. I took my shoes to him to get them reheeled only a few weeks ago - I do not mean Timpsons. He also repairs any kind of leatherwear. A rare survival.

I remember the broken biscuits in the glass topped tins.

Bacon offcuts have reappeared recently after being absent for decades. My local butcher and local farm shops offer them. They are now usually called 'lardons', the French word for bacon bits. The revival led by lots of people seeing them in French supermarkets and delis.

Most DIY stores these days mix your paint to order. It is quite fascinating to see all the different pigments needed to make any one colour

The splendid Cheryl Bakes on Tik Tok makes some lovely food, and often uses what she calls ‘ cooking bacon’ from Lidl, which looks like offcuts. She can manage very substantial dishes from one packet.

My cousin Mary had a cockles and whelks etc stall round the side of st Pacras station,
I remember the candlewick bedspread, cutlery with bone handles,Mansies pie and mash, bodies with rubber buttons,transitor radios(I had a pink one),radio Caroline,panstick, gunmetal tights, scholl clogs.

Bodices not bodies,

Chestnut

ferry23 - thanks for the link. It was fascinating and so nice to see pictures of things that most people didn't even think of taking a photo of, even if they had a camera. Developing pictures was expensive so people didn't normally spend money taking pictures of everyday things like this.

My favourite was the paraffin can being filled. I had to take two empty gallon cans round the corner to the shop and carry them home full. The design of the cans meant they cut into your fingers and were quite painful to carry due to the weight. Thankfully we didn't live too far from the shop or I don't know how I'd have managed. I was about 9-11 years old at the time.

I can still remember the smell of paraffin. And also the lovely glow from the paraffin heater. Also the calor gas lights in the caravan we used to holiday in. The sound, the smell, the light it gave off. And reading books from that light that had been left in the caravan for people to read.

I always enjoy a trip down Memory Lane 😃
My Nan had a coal fired range for heating and cooking and I used to sit on a rug in front of it dressing dollies.
She made toffee on a tin tray which we used to hit with a little hammer to break up.
Laundry was done in a tub in the backyard.

My town has a proper cobbler, and as well as repairs he sells all kind of leather goods and will dye shoes as well ( if leather or suede).

Talking of shoes….I wore my Clarks boots yesterday and the black soles fell to bits, black fragments all over the place and big holes revealed 😲The boots were leather but the soles were polyurethane I think.They were about ten years old.

My mother worked in a grocer’s and could cut an exact weight of cheese just by looking, with a wire attached to two clothes pegs. I remember the big barrel of cheese and another of butter.

Oreo

Talking of shoes….I wore my Clarks boots yesterday and the black soles fell to bits, black fragments all over the place and big holes revealed 😲The boots were leather but the soles were polyurethane I think.They were about ten years old.

Often happens with shoes nowadays, particularly if not worn often.