Many thanks…

We also had a shop on wheels where you could get bread and milk etc but they did sweets in the tall jars - a bag of Yorkshire Mixture kept me quiet for hours!

On a more controversial link, an Asian shopkeeper moved into our village in the early 1980s (I think) and had to put up with an horrendous amount of abuse and damage to his shop. I wouldn’t like to think what he went through and I imagine I had a censored view being a child but the good news is he is still here and is one of the cornerstones of our community despite losing a lot of business to the local Morrisons which has opened up less than 1/2 mile away.

We would do a weekly shop in the local Hillards and about fornightly would travel to Barnsley for special items and a lunch of pie and pies - this would be in the indoor market and would involve trying to find your food through the haze of smoke as everyone in their puffed away. We would then go to the vegetable stalls and me and my sister would be allowed on the carousel (this is still there and still operates) whilst my mum ran round and did her shopping.

If anyone does have the pleasure of visiting Barnsley you must go to the meat and fish market. It is still as thriving today as it was all those years ago. We used to get tripe and dripping for my dad - no wonder I turned vegetarian soon after.

Life became very interesting during the miners strike when the whole of my village (Cortonwood) struggled for money and food. A soup kitchen was set up for those really in need and the rest of us had to get very imaginative with spam and potatoes!

Talked to my mum about this tonight (until she realised it was something geographical - and then she had to go and unpack her shopping… she’d just got back from her weekly shop at Sainsbury’s at 9.20pm… she normally does it on a Friday morning, but they’d run out of milk - the milkman still brings a pint a day, which is fine unless dad has cornflakes for his breakfast!). She told me that Jock Thompson, the greengrocer, also used to deliver our Christmas tree every year. And apparently, Sainsbury’s opened when I was 5 (about 21 years ago).

Also, my gran apparently used to buy Horrock’s pillowcases from the gentleman’s outfitters (apparently called Briggs’s) - and I’ve dreamt that the bald beige man was called John… but he’s still about!! My mum says she was convinced for some time that he was called Horrocks because of the pillowcases…

My mum brought me a microwave for Christmas Alan, it was still in it’s box three weeks into the new year, she wasn’t impressed

I remember going to the Co-op in Smalley (it’s a house now) with a list and being served over the counter. Butter was cut and weighed from a huge block and bacon was sliced on a machine with a large handle. The butcher (from Stanley Common) came round the village in a van with fresh meat and we bought milk (in a jug) and eggs from the farm across the road.