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

[gdm27]

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

[MargaretR]

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.

[Sonnart]

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!

[Margaret Pilkington]

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.

[gdm27]

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.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by gdm27

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

Sauls near the top of Black Abbey St.
Retlaw

[claytonx]

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.

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

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.

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.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by susie123

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.

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.

[mobertol]

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

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

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

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.

[Margaret Pilkington]

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.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by claytonx

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.

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) Ya the good old days

[mobertol]

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!

[Margaret Pilkington]

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.