A Village Shop in the 1960s

By Jean Sheehan

Recently a meeting was called by the new owners of the old Redgrave Stores (which used to be called the top shop) to see if the village would like to run a community shop from part of the old shop premises. The discussions on shop keeping took me back to the time we bought the other shop in the village (known as the bottom shop).

When we purchased Waveney Stores, Redgrave in 1966, we little realised how much village shops would change in the next three decades. The majority of our customers were agricultural workers and their families, and the only shops remotely like supermarkets were the International Stores and the Co-op in Diss. Most of our customers arrived by bicycle and the occasional tractor, few women had cars of their own at that time.

We had no experience of shopkeeping, but the reps and regular customers were very helpful, and we soon learnt the quantity of goods we needed to purchase. At this time, Thomas Ridley and Sons, wholesalers, had a warehouse in St. Nicholas Yard, Diss, and Frank could call in there on a daily basis when he went to the bank, and buy very small quantities. We could buy as little as a quarter dozen small tins of red salmon, (we had one customer who bought one tin a week), and as a result, we could afford to stock almost anything customers wanted to buy. They also sent a rep. round on a fortnightly basis, when we placed our large order, which arrived by lorry. This only lasted a short time, as Thomas Ridley opened a large cash-and-carry at Rougham, and closed the Diss branch. Small tins of salmon then had to be purchased in cases of 48 tins which took too long to turn over profitably. Thomas Ridley were our largest suppliers, but individual vans and reps. also called on us selling cooked meats, dairy produce, cakes, biscuits, tea, ice-cream, etc. We also dealt with two wholesalers selling stationery, toys, gifts, hardware, etc. One of these was a small firm from Diss called Cuttings. We also bought fizzy drinks from another Diss company, Doubledays.

At this time many of our customers were employed seasonally by the local farmers. In May, the women picked asparagus for Mr. Higham. This was grown in the fields close to the crossroads in Redgrave. In the afternoons they would all arrive at the shop on their bicycles, and buy pies and cakes which they would usually cook themselves but as they were out working they had no time to cook their own. In the summer, the women would hoe sugar beet, pick potatoes, blackcurrants and peas. The latter were grown at Dashes Farm by Mr. Rush under contract to Birds Eye who would tell him exactly which day they would be ready for picking, and he would then put an advert in our shop for pickers. My children would often earn money doing these jobs in the summer holidays as they got older, although they were not so keen on the blackcurrant picking, as they had to eat their sandwiches with hands covered in blackcurrant juice.

We inherited some unusual stock when we took over the shop. There were several cartons of bath brick, which took us a long time to discover had been used for whitening door steps in the past. There were also pig powders, Union Jack paste for bunions and isinglass which was used for preserving eggs. Our main stock consisted of groceries, confectionery and cigarettes.

During our first few years in Redgrave we sold a great deal of paraffin as several people used oil stoves for heating, and the elderly lady who lived next door in Felix Cottage even used it for cooking. One elderly gentleman bought candles from us on a regular basis as he only had one electric light in his house. We also sold 'Elsanol', which was a chemical used in the outside loos before everyone was connected to the main sewer which only arrived in Redgrave a few months after we came in 1966.

Christmas was always an exciting time in the shop. In September the wholesalers would hold Christmas shows which I would attend to choose the giftware, toys and confectionery for the shop. My children loved coming to these and seeing all the new toys. At that time it seemed quite unusual to see all the Christmas decorations in September, but nowadays they are in the shops so early that perhaps it would not seem so strange. It was always exciting to unpack the big brown boxes as they arrived with the Christmas things. Many of our customers joined our Christmas club early in the year and as I unpacked the goods they were asking me to reserve items for them and nearer Christmas they would come and draw out their money for the Christmas goods. In November we often had Christmas evenings when our customers could come and choose their goods at leisure over a cup of coffee, without their children. At the beginning of December, I would dress the shop windows with Christmas decorations and as my son Adrian grew older, he loved to decorate the windows with sets of coloured lights. My father was convinced one year that the power cut the village experienced was due to all the lights Adrian had put up. The shop always seemed very dull just after Christmas when all the decorations were taken down, unlike the present day when the stores start their sales on Boxing Day, and the Christmas decorations have gone before Christmas Eve.

Part II

Few people had deep-freezes in the 1960s and food such as frozen peas, ice cream etc. were bought in small quantities for immediate consumption, and as a result, people visited the shop on a regular basis. Many farm workers were paid on Fridays, therefore Friday evening and Saturdays were the busiest days for the main grocery orders. When we first bought the shop Frank canvassed in Fen Street and Blo Norton and offered a free delivery service Tuesday lunchtimes and Friday evenings. As a result we had many loyal customers who bought their main grocery orders from us for years. One Friday evening whilst Frank was out delivering we had torrential rain. The engine of his Morris Traveller was flooded, and Arthur and Christopher Flatman dried his engine out with a hair dryer. Meanwhile I was serving in the shop (we stayed open until 7.00 pm on Fridays) and the water began to pour into the back of the shop. Several customers helped me to gather up stock from the floor to prevent it from being soaked. Our children came into the shop to tell me the water was coming into the dining-room under an outside door, but that had to wait until the shop was closed.

One year after buying the shop we purchased the post office business from the existing postmaster, who then sold his property as a private house rather than a business. We converted a store room into the post office. After a few years, we converted this room into a gift shop and moved the post office into the main shop. Several years after this we converted it into the Old Curiosity Shop and sold used items for other people, charging a small commission.

When we first moved to the shop the stock included some items of clothing such as socks and tights and a few other children's clothes. As I had three children up to the age of five, I started to buy other clothes which I needed for my children, but would put them in the window first. As a result I began to build up a demand for clothes. After a couple of years we renovated a dilapidated storeroom into a small boutique. By this time, I was also selling women's clothes. The clothes I was buying came from East Anglian wholesalers and were good value for money and lasted for years. I was asked by local groups to put on fashion shows at village halls. My children and a few of my long suffering friends acted as models and Frank compered the shows. We did this for several years, although my sons backed out as they grew older, and we must have raised several hundred pounds for local groups and charities. By this time I was travelling to the East End of London on Sunday mornings to buy women's clothes from wholesalers, which were more fashionable but relatively cheap. We had also renovated another storeroom to expand the boutique.

Towards the end of the 1960s things were beginning to change. Mr. Peter Holt-Wilson, the Lord of the Manor, sold some of the estate cottages and farmhouses. People from London and the home counties began to move into the village, and they were used to shopping in much bigger shops than the village store. The first supermarket arrived in Diss. This was Fine Fare, situated in Mere Street where the bakers and Mackays are now. By modern standards, this was a very small supermarket, but at that time it offered a much wider selection of goods than we could offer, and with loss leaders seemed much better value.

After seventeen years of running the shop, we found it was not paying its way. Frank had already diversified into writing for the local papers to supplement our income, firstly as village correspondent, then football reporter and drama critic. I managed to get a part time job at weekends, which subsidised the shop for a few months, and when I was offered a full time job, it seemed the best thing to accept. Frank carried on running the post office and selling a few things until 1989, when he discovered he could earn more as a postman than being a sub-postmaster with all the responsibilities of providing premises and security for the post office and the shop was closed.

Although I enjoyed the years of running the shop, even though it was very hard work, it was a relief to have a regular income and to get away from the same four walls to go to work. What I missed most about the shop was meeting the local people and all the very good friends we met through the shop. I enjoyed listening to their stories of Redgrave in the past, especially about our predecessors in the shop, of whom there were seven in the twentieth century. The Crackthorn family owned it in the last half of the nineteenth century and their graves can still be seen in Redgrave Churchyard. I have kept the bell metal weights which we used in the shop when we first bought it, before the country went metric. Some of these weights had Queen Victoria's head stamped into the lead added by weights and measures inspectors and date back to the early nineteenth century. I also kept the black iron and copper beam scales which were used in the shop before our time. When I moved I had to sell the the two Victorian Mahogany Counters, one nine foot long, as they were too large for a modern bungalow. I also sold a later display cabinet with Rowntrees painted in gold on the glass. It was sad to have to sell the shop as a private house after being a shop for approximately one and a half centuries, but times change.