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Corner Shops

• Bookworm on Sunday, 1st June 2003

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  What a lot of memories reading about the corner shops evoked.
  I well remember all the experiences described in the various recollections.
  But there is another aspect to the corner shop.
  When I was a child in the 1930's it was quite a common thing for the corner grocery shop to allow customers to have an account book. This book was used to buy what they needed during the week and the goods were paid for on Friday which was when most working men got their wages.
  Without this system many families would have had very meagre fare, indeed some would have gone hungry. So, in this way, these small shops provided a social service long before the Social Services as we know it today existed.
  
  It must be very difficult in these days of internet shopping, supermarkets and bulk buying for today's shopper to visualise what it was like to go to the corner shop with an account book.
  A mid-week shopping list would have included things like 2oz (50 grams) of tea which was sold loose and weighed into a little bag, 4ozs (100 grams) of butter which was taken from a large block using two wooden bats to beat it into shape and a loaf of white bread which was unwrapped and unsliced.
  As a rule only necessities for survival were charged on the book but if a small luxury could be afforded it might have been 8ozs (200 grams) of broken biscuits. Biscuits also were unwrapped and were weighed and bagged by the shopkeeper, the broken ones were sold at a reduced price.
  Frequently the shopkeepers lived on the premises and the "Open all Hours" was a truism.
  The value and importance of the corner shop to the working class areas of the 30's is inestimable.
  Thank you to all the previous contributers for awakening all these memories.

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