| Gatley
- The End of the Line
By Peter Boden 8. THE CO-OPERATIVE GROCERY STORE. Click on images to enlarge We moved, again, to “Oakwood House” near the Clock Tower and the 1914-18 War Memorial (Illus. 8). There were several shops nearby on the High Street. They included a Post Office, the District Bank, Mottram’s shoe shop, Chandler’s provisions, a cake and a clothes shop but most of all there was the Co-operative grocery store.
We lived in the house at the corner of Oakwood Avenue which was part of the large Co-operative store. At last my real education for life could begin. I was five and eager to learn. The shop manager was a Mr Shrigley, who sported a military moustache. He was a person to whom all respect, with a capital R , was due at all times! Each working day all the employees would be tense as opening time approached. Mr Shrigley would study his fob-watch and check the seconds ticking away. On the stroke of nine he would ceremoniously unlock the main entrance and open the door. The small doorbell would tinkle, and he would welcome the first customer of the day. The staff would be standing to attention, and neatly spaced behind the brightly polished counter. The cashier, Miss Morris, had her separate, and very demure enclosure, to which overhead wires led from the counter positions. After a customer had been served, the money together with a bill giving the amount and “divi” number, would be placed into a container. This would be fastened to the overhead wire, and with a sharp tug on a wooden handle attached to a short rope, it would be fired along the wires to the cashier. Within a trice the change and the “divi” check would be returned with a self satisfied whine. Each month the Co-op collected the “divi” checks for addition. In those days a customer would receive 12.5% “divi” sales discount credit against future purchases. Will those days ever return? How I longed
to ride that trolley along those wires! However, at my height, I could
scarcely see over the counter, without standing on a convenient container.
With that sort of help I could just reach a glass-topped box containing
broken biscuits, and so I could sample the contents each morning. Behind the shop area I was tolerated, provided that I kept out of the way from everyone, particularly Mr. Shrigley. For three years I had the time of my life. I think back to those early days with the greatest nostalgia. The scenes in any shop museum, (like the Beamish Museum, Durham) or the scent from opened packages of tea, coffee, mint, paraffin oil (served from a barrel at the back of the shop) and the smell of vinegar or large cheeses, gives me an instant recall of those times. I really must re-visit the Beamish Museum! The smell of hot beef dripping is another pungent reminder of my shop days. There was a boiler type piece of equipment, into which chunks of fatty meat were loaded. The heating process “rendered” or produced beef dripping which was sold in solid portions for use in cooking (the word cholesterol was unknown in the 1930s). Cheese and butter portions were cut off large barrel-shaped containers, using steel wires. Vinegar was drawn from barrels through a wooden tap into the customers own bottles, sometimes by little old me. I was, of
course, not paid for all my work. When I say unpaid, this was not
strictly true, because sometimes I received goods for services rendered
in the shape of Cadbury’s or Fry’s chocolate bars and
Polar Mints; this was strictly contrary to the Truck Acts but I never
informed the Inland Revenue. Years later I was still worried about
the omissions whenever I filled a tax return in later years. |
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