THE VILLAGE SHOP

It is said that my great grandfather was quite a wealthy man who had his own carriage and pair, and owned a grocery business in Worthing, but was a gambler and lost it in a game of cards.

My grandfather came to Findon about 1873 and started his grocery and general store in a small shop in The Square.  He eventually moved to one of a pair of cottages nearby, with his shop adjoining.  The front parlour of the house was turned into the post office.  The public telephone box was inside the office and large enough for a person to be seated when phoning.  Over the years the grocery shop has been considerably enlarged, and when the cottage was taken in it was found that the walls were of wattle, daub and horsehair.

My father took over the business in the early 1900s.  No goods were packaged as they are today.  Sugar was in hessian sacks and had to be weighed and put into different coloured bags, or pokes, e.g. yellow bags for demerara.  Dried fruit, haricot and butter beans, split peas and lentils, rice and tapioca were also loose and had to be weighed out.  Tea came in large chests made of plywood.  The only machine was the cash register.  All the bacon rashers were cut by hand, the rind being removed by a swift stroke of the knife.  Biscuits were kept in tins with glass-topped lids, the broken biscuits could be bought for a few pence.  Spices were always sold whole and gave the shop that particularly lovely smell.  There were no refrigerators of course, but a large cellar which ran under the house was used for storing bacon and cheese.

Ginger beer was sold in stone bottles and fizzy lemonade was in glass bottles with a glass marble in the top, which you had to push down with your thumb to "open" the bottle.

There were chairs at the counters for the customers to use when selecting their requirements or giving their orders, to be delivered by errand boys on their weighty bicycles with the high-fronted baskets.  Sawdust was spread on the floor, which was swept up and replaced with fresh every night from the local sawmill.

Treacle was kept in casks and customers brought their own jamjars to be filled.  One day the carrier arrived after the shop had closed for lunch; he tried to offload the cask on his own, but it slipped, rolled across the road, hit the wall opposite and broke.  The children returning to school after lunch had a high time walking in the treacle and dipping their fingers, and copious amounts of sand, sawdust and straw had to be used to clear it.

Two men, besides my father, served behind the counters, and one woman.  The man drove the van — a very early Ford — to get orders from such outlying places as Myrtle Grove, and then delivering them.  One other woman was in the desk as book-keeper.

There was a carrier's cart which plied between the villages, and later a motor van.  Parcels from Working were brought by the Southdown bus and left at the shop for collection.   Bookings for the bus were made in the shop, and morning newspapers were also sold there till after the Second World War.