Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

I stand to be corrected on most of the following. Way back in the late 50's or early 60's my Mum took me to the 1st "Supermarket" in Accy. I think it was at the top of Abbey St??? No idea what it was called but remember you had to put your stuff in a wire basket and then pay for it at a till (yes I know that's what we do today) Gone were the days of shopping lists and watching the list get done for you. What other shopping has changed that you can remember :confused::confused::confused:


:hehetable

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Many items were not prepacked.
You asked for the weight you wanted and it was weighed and wrapped.

There was no plastic - paper was wrapping, and thick brown paper was a carrier bag with string handles.

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Even about 16/17years ago I still remember my mum taking me shopping with her in Ossy. We got our food from the fruit and veg shop, then cheese and milk from the deli, then meat from the butchers and bread/cakes from the bakery :) loved it!

We didn't really go to asda/sainsburys then.

Even where I work now in a butchers we have to have shelves with prepacked already priced up meat. It's still made fresh in the morning, but people are so used to just getting things prepacked/weighed/priced that we have to have it out.

I love how a lot of people think I look too young to know what an ounce, or 3/4lb is :) ounces and lbs are better to work with, easier to get a handful of 1lbs of mince, rather than it having to be exactly 300gm.

Where ever I went I always had tasters aswell. Sometimes a free apple/banana!

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You could choose your bacon, and have it sliced in just the way you wanted it.
Butter came in barrels. A lump was chopped off weighed and then patted with wooden paddles into a butter dish shape.(posh shops had moulds to shape the butter.....they were usually round and had a pattern on them)
Tea, coffee(which they would grind for you) and cocoa could be bought loose......weighed into blue sugar paper bags with the weight on the front....no name or brand on the bags.
Soap was also cut off a long block......green(olive soap) or red(carbolic soap).
Tongue and ham were sliced by hand with a sharp knife(hopefully not the one they had used to cut the soap) and again you could ask for it to be cut thin.
Biscuits.......if you wanted a pound of mixed biscuits you chose the ones you liked from the glass lidded tins....the grocery assistant would pick them out and put them in a paper bag. The name Huntley and Palmers springs to mind.

The floor was strewn with sawdust, which was swept up at the end of the day to be replenished with fresh stuff the folllowing morning.

Shops that were like this...Blowers in Church St, The co-op branches.......and Veevers...though if I remember rightly it seemed a more up market grocery store....not one that we frequented......though I did go in once or twice with my gran to buy Gold Dish Jaffa Juice.

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Buying wallpaper, do you remember when you went to the wallpaper shop, when you picked your rolls the assistant knocked the ends of the rolls off on the edge of the counter!!! Kept the ends for the kids to play with.

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Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

When I got married we bought a sideboard,dinning table,and four chairs and a fitted carpet (we were posh) my mother had lino around her carpet,all this was bought from the Co-op on Pickup Street in Clayton paid for on a white card at 10 shillings per week thats 50p with no intrest and delivered free of charge. I don't think things have got better.

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I only remember the butchers with sawdust on the floor but not the grocers.
I remember the name Blowers but can't think where it was... Veevers in Peel Street was definitely up market - and I remember when Jaffa Juice first came out - didn't taste much different from clinic orange juice!
My mum went to a small grocers run by a nice man called Joinson on Whalley Road in the block before the Hope & Anchor pub. There was a long counter with chairs to sit at and mum used to write her order in a notebook for delivery at home.

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Sue there is a blog out there just for you.
Was it Roland Joinson?

Blowers was the first shop after the Arcade as you walked up Church St.
I loved the Gold Dish brand of Jaffa juice....My gran used to buy it, they were a bit more affluent than us.........I liked clinic orange juice.
I know when I first tasted the Jaffa juice I told my gran it tasted just like orange juice........I was only little and didn't know what a jaffa was.

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

I remember when Iceland first opened in Accy - my mum was a great fan of Arctic Roll as an easy sweet.

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Thanks, I've seen the blog.

No, Rowland Joynson, think that's the right spelling, was a reporter on the Observer. The grocer I think was Herbert and there was a Herbert Joinson on the Accy absent voters list after WW1 so he would have been approaching retirement in the 50s/60s.

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I knew that name rang a bell but couldn't quite remember why.....heck, don't tell me my memory is starting to fail me here.

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Sounds a bit like what I did claytonx, only we bought second hand furniture (people did that in those days, now everything has to be new) the inlaws bought the 3 piece suite, my parents fitted carpets and a new twin tub washer (do they still make them:confused:) Ya the good old days;)

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My mum has journals dating back to her Grandparents time where there are shopping lists written daily with what was bought and spent -I remember Brawn features regularly which is something you don't get today. Also my grandad told us that as the children helped carry food through from the kitchen to the dining table my Great-grandmother used to make them sing so she knew they weren't eating any of the food - there were 12 in the family!

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That is like when we were shelling peas, we had to whistle....you couldn't eat the tender young peas and whistle at the same time.

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I had a good wage John as a underground mechanic at Huncoat Pit and could make my own overtime.While my wife worked at Clayton laundry and had a good wage.Mortgage was £4.25 per month,no car, no telephone,no tv very little outgoing expence.

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There are 3 Joinson's in the Absent Voters list, they all lived in Clayton.
The Absent Voters list wasn't after WW1.
After WW1 they wouldn't be absent, that list was created in 1918 whilst the war was on. It was supposed to have been created by the soldiers filling in forms, but thats bull shine.
There are three men in the Accrington list, who were killed in action 2 years earlier, who filled in those forms, who filled in the forms of men missing in action, later to be found as prisoners of war.
Retlaw.

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Thanks for that info Walter, it's fascinating.

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The laundry where your wife worked? Was that at the end of Lower Barnes Street?

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My Great-Aunt, Lucy Border (neè Croston) ran the laundry down in Clayton for a long time -it was on the left half way down Whallley Road from The Greyhound pub.

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Correct, Eric, You are a Cayton lad did you go to school in Clayton

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I don't remember that. I had a friend called Voll Croston lived in Henry st and had a school of motoring learner drivers.

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Volney is my mum's cousin -his name comes through from a French second wife of my grandad's uncle (complicated!)

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my husband learned to drive with Volney....I believe his son Glenn, now runs the motoring school.

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Same here,only new thing was a Gas Cooker,wouldn't risk a second hand un.

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Yup ... All Saints ... left in '57 for Accy Grammar .... there were others from down Lower Barnes St. going at the same time I was ... David Bartram, Raymond Pye, Rodney Howard ... and probably a couple more that have slipped my memory. I lived up Rishton Road, past the old paint works, at the bottom of Charles St., near the gate and the stile to Ringstonhalgh Farm ... don't know if that's the correct spelling (and I don't think spellcheck would help;)), but a family called Swale had it. Used to get milk from them, dipped out fresh ... always remember the horse used to like to take a dump outside our house:D How did I ever survive without health controls on how milk was processed and sold.:confused:

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That has sorted how he got that name very unusual name,he also had a friend called Jack
Lightbrown another driving instructor,they both worked at Huncoat Pit while they were getting there schools started. Small World

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You are quite a lot younger than me.The year you left was Jim Bradshaw still Headmaster
he taught me at Mount Pleasant but I left 1950 I was getting married the year you left All Saints 1957 that makes me 77 in July.I thought you might have known some of the Howsen girls they lived at 1 Alexander st.
I lived at 71 Barnes st and when married accross the road at 74
The photo on the post Harry Boyle has quite a few bottom enders on I am the smallest stood next to the teacher (the Billy Bremner of the day)have a look you might reconise someone,two lads stood at the back far end are from below the bridge

Roy Smethurst

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Jim Bradshaw was still headmaster at All Saints when I left in 1968.

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[QUOTE=Margaret Pilkington;960403]
Biscuits.......if you wanted a pound of mixed biscuits you chose the ones you liked from the glass lidded tins....the grocery assistant would pick them out and put them in a paper bag. The name Huntley and Palmers springs to mind.
My dad was an apprentice grocer (his words) at Redmans in Accrington,he then moved to Duckworth`s,got married,bought a house up Dowry St.Not long after,dad bought a shop in Haslingden.I was born above the shop(1952),the biscuit comment Margaret, was so true,those glass lidded tins were a feature in dads shop, I will never forget that.What I also remember strongly was dad buying a freezer,it was very much the new thing to sell frozen food,tv dinners and frozen peas!

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I remember when Mum and Dad had to run a tab at the grocers around the corner. Bet that doesn't happen anymore!

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Ya I seem to remember our mortgage was about a fiver a month, think we paid something like £1,100 for the house,(hell my granddaughter paid about £115 grand for her house) I had a quite well paid job and so did the wife, but she soon had to finish work (because thats why I have a granddaughter now:D) think the same house has been sold quite resently for £96 grand, the good old days hey:rolleyes:

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

[quote=Stevie R;961001]Remember going down Accy on a Saturday Morning with my Mum and went to the biscuit stall to see if they had a bag of broken biscuits, it was first come first served

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Ya a lot of shops had signs up saying Please don't ask for credit as refusal sometimes offends, my mate had a different slant on it please don't ask for credit as a smack in the mouth might offend:D

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If you went to put petrol in your car and pay cash(no cards in them days) they would usually knock the odd pence off.

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I remember mum collecting Green Shield Stamps when i was little but I don't know what they were for.

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Shops bought Green Shield Stamps and gave them away to customers for buying at their shop and to tempt them to come back.You saved the stamps in books provided and you were also given at the time a catalogue with gifts in,when you had enough books filled you could exchange them for gifts to that value either by post, or there was a shop at Blackpool where you could go and choose there.

Good explanation or not?

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Great explanation - now you mention them I remember the catalogues too. A sort of early "supermarket points" system for faithful clients.

Mum used to smoke back then and I vaguely remember some Embassy coupons too...

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

[QUOTE=claytonx;961072]Shops bought Green Shield Stamps and gave them away to customers for buying at their shop and to tempt them to come back.You saved the stamps in books provided and you were also given at the time a catalogue with gifts in,when you had enough books filled you could exchange them for gifts to that value either by post, or there was a shop at Blackpool where you could go and choose there

My firm I worked for sent me out to buy the christmas bottles of spirits for the works do,I spent £38 at Tesco and got treble stamps!!

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I now shame to say that my wife and me saved enough Embassy ciggy coupons to get a babys pram this was 1968/9 i've just asked my wife she says value about £40-£50 what a lot of cigs we must have smoked. I gave up after heart problems 2003.

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All the fitters at Shopfitters used to save Green Shield stamps, just think when you were filling up Bedford TK with about 50 gallons with quadruple stamps, I had dozens of books full of stamps, if I remember rightly swapped um for somat. Green Shield main office was in Edgware north London and there was a big store where you could trade um in

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Ya I used to smoke Embassy too claytonx, I gave up in 1978

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

You would not have got many coupons then

Re: Buying stuff way back!!! How things have changed!!!
 

Players No7 did coupons too - I got a suede jacket

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Kensitas coupons - my dad got lung cancer!

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Think you mean No 6 Margaret.

I've still got a couple of books of Green Shield stamps somewhere!

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I recall a popular green grocery cum fuiterers store at the junction of Broadway with Whalley Road. That was before Broadway was pedestrianised. I believe it was called Catlows and run as a family affair by two brothers.

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First 'supermarket' I went in was Tescos on Union St. I seem to remember a bit of chaos - stack 'em hi sell 'em cheap?

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Tesco had stores at either end of Union Street, long before they were the Tesco Chain that we know today.

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A long long time ago when I went to school most of us boys and girls wore clogs. Boys clogs had irons on the bottom,girls had rubber pieces,It was great to run down the street and make sparks from the irons,but also helped to wear them away.
You could go to the Co-op shoe shop and buy new irons for 1 shilling and fit them youself or your dad,but the best way was to go into the cloggers no appointment just straight in after school and hope no one had got there before you, or then you had to sit on a wooden form and wait your turn which cut down playing out time.
When it was your turn he always asked your name,and then he got the last (which is a metal form to put the clogs on) between his knees took your clogs one at a time pulled the old broken irons off then he would knock little wooden sticks in to the old nail holes before fitting the new irons,and he would do the same with the heels,about 20 minutes work.
He would make you put the clogs on and jump up and down,then he wrote the money to pay on a piece of paper and sealed it up so you could not see the cost, until you got to the counter in the shop to pay,the lady would say how much it was to pay,if you had not enough she would write a note to give to your mum to pay later.
When I grew older I remember asking my dad about why the clogger always asked your name,he said that the clogger new nearly everyone in the top end of Clayton and who were the poor familys thats why he sealed the prices to hide the different charges that he made.

You could not get away with that now. And I'm told things have got better?

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Correct, and before that the Catlows fruit & veg was at the bottom of Infant St at its junction with Peel St, in an old wooden building.
Retlaw.

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So yeh learnt me summat there walter, can remember the Fruit @ Veg in the Green painted wooden building bottom of Infant St, but never knew twas Catlows, cheers fer that un.:)

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Yes there was a stall in there selling dress materials too...can't for the life of me think of the name of it though.

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No it was back in the late 50s and 60s that coupons were in their prime, can't remember why they stopped including coupons though,

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Think they were the first to include coupons if I remember rightly

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You know Margaret I seem to remember wooden tables in there with bric-a-brac and small tools and bits of stuff you might find at a car boot sale.

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Could have been inflation. Do you remember when that guy had saved up enough books to get a Ford Cortina and when he went to claim it he found out it had gone up by hundreds of books!!!!! Long walk home with wheelbarrows full of Green Shield Stamps!!

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I remember buying ribbed clogs from a shop on Blackburn road Army and Navy shop. These clogs were made ribbed or a corrugated type of leather. We wore these down the pit at Huncoat. I remember getting up at 04.30 in the morning to get ready. My mam had put up my bait the night before. If I was lucky I would get 1 egg or potted beef spread on 8 slices of bread. We saved up green shield stamps. I think it worked out you had to spend so many pounds to fill 1 book. Proud as hell I managed to save for a flask to take my tea in. First day taking it to work, Broke it getting off the train at Huncoat station. Heart broken. Never even tasted the tea.