Mrs Dunkley, have you heard of Mrs Dunkley? She had a shop in Ham Street next to the Brewery Tap, and she practically ruled it, you didn’t dare say the wrong word to Mrs Dunkley, and she, after the war, she bought a grocer’s shop and sold groceries which I always did my order every week until we had supermarkets came along and then gradually ran down, but she ruled with a rod of iron.  Lovely old lady.  You used to get, you know this controversy about taking bottles back and getting money on them, well we did in those days, you would a penny or tuppence back and she had a crate which she dropped them in, but she used to hate taking money out of the till to give it to you.  And we used to collect them and take them back and get a penny or tuppence back.

What was Mrs Dunkley like? She was a rigid ruler, a bit like on “Last of the Summer Wine” she was a bit like that, that’s Mrs Dunkley, shrewd!  After Mrs Dunkley moved over to the other side, the cobblers took over that one, I’ve forgotten his name, Charlie Gadd.  That was there for a long time.

There was a butchers there we had to be registered with during the war, Beales the butchers, you had a ration book during the war.  Sausage meat now and again he would have, that was off rations, my mum used to send me up there for that and I was eating it one day coming home, raw, and I read years later that it wasn’t safe to eat raw sausage meat, but I thought I’m still here!  I used to get sent up there to get the meat ration.  At bit like when you see “Dad’s Army” it was just like that, certain ration that you had and you queued up.

Oh there was a library, we had a library on Ham Parade, he had this whole room, it was what was the stationers until recently, that was the library, this old bloke used to sit at his desk there and I used to have to go and change my mother’s books, she used to like crime books and he’d say I think she’s read that one, and he’d choose another one for me and I said one day do you have any books for me, and he said over there are the Just William books, he said try those and it was one penny to read a Just William book so I read Just William, and that closed down when proper libraries came in.  But you used to go up there and get your card stamped.