The Lemon Fool

When I was a lad, my mum would give me £1 and I'd come back from the shop with a joint of beef, a bag of potatoes, some veg and enough groceries to last the week.

You cant do that these days...




There are too many feckin security cameras!

It's not the security cameras. If you had the fitness and agility of a teenager ...

staffordian wrote:When I was a lad, my mum would give me £1 and I'd come back from the shop with a joint of beef, a bag of potatoes, some veg and enough groceries to last the week.

You cant do that these days...

Half a crown, more likely. And the grocer delivered.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:Half a crown, more likely. And the grocer delivered.

Only if you were a middle class household!

Otherwise you were sent off to do the shopping: to the baker, the butcher, the fishmonger and the greengrocer (as required).

But I do remember those delivery boys riding their black delivery bicycles, with a metal frame at the front for holding the box of groceries.

tjh290633 wrote:

staffordian wrote:When I was a lad, my mum would give me £1 and I'd come back from the shop with a joint of beef, a bag of potatoes, some veg and enough groceries to last the week.

You cant do that these days...

Half a crown, more likely. And the grocer delivered.

TJH

Maybe in some places. But as soon as I was old enough to ride a bike, I was old enough ( well, 9) to be sent to the village grocer and ride back with the shopping.

Plus, we had a farm shop very close for simple things. Nipped over the stream, across the field. c.1975. Ran out of milk? The milkman lived in the High street and I was sometimes sent on a Sunday to take stuff out of his fridge, even if he wasn't there. Just left a note. His house was a few doors from the village police station.

Fields are now housing estates, police station closed decades ago and no milk. The population must have doubled but fewer shops than before, enormous cars parked everywhere, yet the village is like a ghost town. Hardly anyone outside, and no kids whizzing around on bikes.

Steve

XFool wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:Half a crown, more likely. And the grocer delivered.

Only if you were a middle class household!

Otherwise you were sent off to do the shopping: to the baker, the butcher, the fishmonger and the greengrocer (as required).

But I do remember those delivery boys riding their black delivery bicycles, with a metal frame at the front for holding the box of groceries.

On a Saturday morning I was one of these delivery boys many years ago. In fact, around 9 am, I was out with my notebook collecting orders from regular customers, returning to the shop to help makeup the orders and then delivering them in pretty much all weathers. I was working for one of the many small independent greengrocers/grocer shops which were in most neighbourhoods before the advent of the supermarket. I used to be well tipped in addition to whatever I got from my employer. It was not much fun if it snowed.

Dod

All very interesting and nostalgic - but this is supposed to be "laughing lemons" .

Tricia

6Tricia wrote:All very interesting and nostalgic - but this is supposed to be "laughing lemons" .

All is acceptable with an obligatory joke.

C.
OJ: Remember when jokes weren't just about nostalgia? Those were the days.