Shop baskets

[coccinelle]

This is a bit of nostalgia; can you remember the first time you ever went into a food shop and picked up a basket and helped yourself rather than asking the lady behind the counter for everything? I can...

[jno]

also, the greengrocer used to come round with all his produce in a quite large lorry, and we'd go outside and choose what we wanted. Don't get that any more, do you? The supermarkets have only just started delivering again after all these years.

[boxtops]

We used to get the baker coming to the door, and the fishmonger, and the insurance man. We had a lovely grocer's shop in the nearby town, where they cut the cheese with a wire and wrapped it in brown paper, and loose tea came in bags.

[coccinelle]

Yes, we had a travelling shop come to our house too in the 70s we called him the Spar man. There was also the fishmonger but he had to stop in the 90s when through law had to have scales in grammes and kilos and couldn't afford them.

[carmalee]

my Mom had an account at the local shop and I used to feel so gown up going in for something and saying "would you please put it on my Mom's account |Mr Morris" then at the end of the week she'd go in and settle the up and Mr Morris would add up the entries so quickly I was so impressed. He kept his pencil behind his ear which I thought was pretty nifty - that was on Fridays then on Saturday we'd go to the Co Op and something really impressive used to happen.I think it was my Mum's pound notes that were put in a big brass thingie that zoomed around overhead to some faceless place on the upper floor to return empty a few minutes later. Really mysterious grown up stuff to me.

[coccinelle]

Ha ha, that reminds me carmalee that my Mam when she was a girl would go into the local shop and ask for some sweets and tell them to put it on the slate! That's what she thought you had to say!!
Our co-op was small so didn't have this whizz system but I saw it in Doggarts a department store in Bp Auckland, but never saw it anywhere else! The money was ejected upto the office.

[carmalee]

Wasn't it great? I promise you it sure impressed me!