50s/60s Britain and Now

[Nearholmer]

There is one down-side of the modern method of shopping: lack of social content.

 

I used to detest going shopping with my gran, or my mother, because they engaged in endless debate about exactly what they were buying with each shopkeeper in turn, gossiped with everyone in every queue, gossiped with people they met in the street, gossiped with the bus-office man, etc etc.

 

Allbthat gossiping was good for people.

[Enterprisingwestern]

16 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There is one down-side of the modern method of shopping: lack of social content.

 

I used to detest going shopping with my gran, or my mother, because they engaged in endless debate about exactly what they were buying with each shopkeeper in turn, gossiped with everyone in every queue, gossiped with people they met in the street, gossiped with the bus-office man, etc etc.

 

Allbthat gossiping was good for people.

 

Now it seems to be done electronically.

 

Mike.

[Reorte]

3 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Now it seems to be done electronically.

Electronic chatting is great for some things - it was great for my gran to be able to talk to my uncle in Canada, it's great at the moment that I can talk to my brother in Australia (not that it happens much due to the time zone differences), but it's still a rather second-rate substitute for real face-to-face.

 

edit: also great for relatives who live much closer in the current situation.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Reorte

[rockershovel]

I remember my mother being much impressed with Fine Fare, pretty much the first supermarket in Cambridge. Tesco(?) had one in the town centre, in Regent Street - obviously chosen to be close to the bus station, because just about ANY bus in Cambridge went through, or near the Drummer Street/Emmanuel Street/Regent Street junction, sooner or later.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by rockershovel

[Nearholmer]

The first such place in our small town was a family-run ‘supermarket’, which sold only things in boxes, tins and bottles. A real ‘stack em high, sell em cheap’ operation.

 

It must have been a simple money-spinner, because all the people who ran it had to do was fetch things from a warehouse or receive deliveries, stack it on shelves, mark the prices and take the money. From what I recall it didn’t even have fridges/freezers, and it didn’t really “change the face of shopping”; that happened when Liptons bought the town cinema and converted it to something like what we would now recognise as a supermarket, thereby starting the destruction of the greengrocer, the fishmonger, the several bakers, the two traditional grocers, the two butchers etc.

 

 

[Reorte]

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

... thereby starting the destruction of the greengrocer, the fishmonger, the several bakers, the two traditional grocers, the two butchers etc.

 

Butchers for some reason seem to have survived better than most of those other shops. There are several scattered around my area. Bakers too, although take away cafe / sandwich shop seems to be a good part of their business these days, so not quite the same.

[TheQ]

21 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The first such place in our small town was a family-run ‘supermarket’, which sold only things in boxes, tins and bottles. A real ‘stack em high, sell em cheap’ operation.

 

It must have been a simple money-spinner, because all the people who ran it had to do was fetch things from a warehouse or receive deliveries, stack it on shelves, mark the prices and take the money. From what I recall it didn’t even have fridges/freezers, and it didn’t really “change the face of shopping”; that happened when Liptons bought the town cinema and converted it to something like what we would now recognise as a supermarket, thereby starting the destruction of the greengrocer, the fishmonger, the several bakers, the two traditional grocers, the two butchers etc.

 

 

it started a long time before then, looking at the next nearest village to me, the cobblers, tailors, wainrights, general stores , 2 out of 3 pubs had all gone long before supermarkets started.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, in small villages. Round our way, they’d boiled down to a pub, and a post-office and general store by the 60s, the odd one retaining a butcher and a baker.
 

Ours was/is a small town, so had a fully functioning range of shops c1960, including the Gas Board selling gas appliances, and the Electricity Board electrical appliances, two toy shops, Woolies, a book and art shop, a good jeweller (he was especially good in that he built 3.5” gauge live steam locos!), cobblers, bus office, a very old-fashioned drapers, shops that sold very, very dull clothes, hardware shop, a feed, seed and farm stuff shop etc etc.

 

It now has one pretty big and comprehensive supermarket, and the rest is dribs and drabs.

 

My father had a perfect recollection of the place in the 1930s and would reel-off who had which shops just before WW2 - a high % were in the same families in the 60s, but a few had been started by his generation in the early 50s. Needless to say, he’d been at school with the jeweller, the vet, the chemist, the wine merchant, the florist, the bank manager, three of the barbers ...... so, he was as big a gossip as my mother still is.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[rockershovel]

I would mention that the early supermarkets in Cambridge had no parking, being very much focussed on bus and foot trade. I don’t remember Fine Fare having trolleys, I suppose because when you don’t have a car, you don’t buy more than you can carry. 

 

The Co-op(?) at Coldhams Lane was the first “out of town” site, in the 1970s but even then it was on the main bus route and directly adjoined the lower end of the Sturton Street / Gwydir Street residential area. 

[rockershovel]

The arcade of small shops we lived in, in Dalston in the early 1960s, had a number of businesses which had survived both World Wars. However the 1960s changed that, not least because the legalisation of betting meant that we acquired a bookmakers in the corner shop, and one small greengrocer shut up shop, fuelling the general belief that he had long made a significant part of his income from betting “under the counter” - taking bets and phoning them in, for a percentage of the winnings, if any, or of the stake, depending on your reputation...

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

I do miss the trolleybuses though.

Preaching to the choir.  Between 1965 and 1970 everything I liked seemed to be disappearing in Cardiff, steam locos (except the Ely Paper Mill RSH), paddle steamers, trolleybuses.  At the age of 18, I finally accepted that it was time to look for girls...

 

7 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

fuelling the general belief that he had long made a significant part of his income from betting “under the counter” - taking bets and phoning them in, for a percentage of the winnings, if any, or of the stake, depending on your reputation...

This was a significant part of the commercial dealings everywhere while only on-course betting was legitimate.  My great uncle Ted, mentioned before in this parish, was a bookie's runner who plied his trade between his pickup points and delivered them to a city centre florist shop which was also engaged in the trade.  This supplemented his dole, which he got from having a professional, and chronic, bad back.  His GP was one of his customers, and sick notes were assured...

 

Thinking about it later, I wondered if the black economy in those days, said in London to have gained a footing during the rationing period (which had not long finished in those days) off the natural criminality of Cockneys, who will sell you fruit and veg at the drop of a hat, had always existed even before the war as a natural part of life.  I had rellys in the Rhondda Valleys, relatively respectable types, one was a junior school headmistress, whose parents had joined in the looting with everyone else in the 1911 riots and who obtained their coal illegally from NCB employees who had 'concession' coal or stole it from railway wagons or the land sale depot which would be conveniently unlocked overnight.  This was considered a completely respectable middle class activity, and even the clergy joined in.

 

There was reputed to have been a lady whose house backed on to the railway in Canton near a signal on the up relief who left a chamber pot hanging on her washing line, bright and shiny in the morning sun, and irresistible to firemen who tried to smash it with lumps of coal.  It was enamel and only ever got dented, but she never ran short of the black stuff...  

 

The black economy was much more respectable in those days, but is still thriving.  There were always shoplifters in pubs, but since about 1970 they've been doing it to fund drug addictions, and seem less honest, somehow.  The duty free ciggies trade is still going as well; car trip to Ostend based.

[rockershovel]

I’m unclear as to quite how Welsh schoolmasters joining in with looting, is an illustration of the “natural criminality of cockneys”, but never mind...

 

The cash-in-hand economy was well established in the Depression, Orwell describes it in various places, not forgetting the ever-present fear and detestation of the “Means Test”, which I believe played a major role in the establishment of the Welfare State as it was originally constituted. 

 

Don’t forget that London was never an industrial city, in the sense of the textile, steel and coal centres of South Wales, lowland Scotland and the North of England. Unionisation was low, pricework of various descriptions common, casual labour (especially in the docks, and the construction industry) pretty much the normal state of affairs. Industries and trades varied widely. Huge quantities of food, beer and manufactured commodities flowed into the Port of London and from the railways from the Midlands, most of it handled and distributed manually. The sheer scale and diversification of activity in London meant that there was always work, often poorly paid and handling valuable or useful items, combined with widespread graft and favouritism and little or no loyalty to employers, who offered little or nothing in return. 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by rockershovel

[stewartingram]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I would mention that the early supermarkets in Cambridge had no parking, being very much focussed on bus and foot trade. I don’t remember Fine Fare having trolleys, I suppose because when you don’t have a car, you don’t buy more than you can carry. 

 

The Co-op(?) at Coldhams Lane was the first “out of town” site, in the 1970s but even then it was on the main bus route and directly adjoined the lower end of the Sturton Street / Gwydir Street residential area. 

The Beehive Centre - now gone and replaced by a large number of retail warehouses? The entrance to which is where "Gasbag", the industrial fireless loco, used to live.

 

Stewart

[tomparryharry]

On 04/06/2020 at 16:44, The Johnster said:

natural criminality of Cockneys, 

 

Hmm, I find that sentiment slightly displaced. Adherence to practices, illegal or otherwise, is not confined by geography. Neither is skin tone, accent, or which side of the bed you were born. 

 

  

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Hmm, I find that sentiment slightly displaced. Adherence to practices, illegal or otherwise, is not confined by geography. Neither is skin tone, accent, or which side of the bed you were born.

 

Maybe somewhat to be fair - different attitudes are more prevalent in different places, which means there's a link with geography (but not that it's a cause per se). There's also therefore going to be a correlation with some other things, but that's certainly not a causation, it's just other unrelated aspects to that part of society.

 

Easy to get observation bias too.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Reorte

[The Johnster]

It was not the best thought out of my comments, and not the point I was trying to make; apologies to those born within the sound of Bow Bells and others from the Smoke. 

[rockershovel]

On 04/06/2020 at 19:10, stewartingram said:

The Beehive Centre - now gone and replaced by a large number of retail warehouses? The entrance to which is where "Gasbag", the industrial fireless loco, used to live.

 

Stewart

 

I’d quite forgotten about Gasbag, which could still be seen working when I first lived in Cambridge in the early 1960s. Cambridge was something of a hold-out for working steam at the time, there was a scrapyard in Coldham’s Lane which contained a pair of Fowler ploughing engines around that time, and the last working steam plough set in the country was said to be at Caxton Gibbet. There was also a steam roller stored in the water pumping station on the Fulbourn Road, and Cheddars Lane pumping station finally decommissioned its steam engines in 1968 (both are still on site at the museum which now occupies the site, and one is still in working order)

 

 

[Hroth]

Given the current Health situation, we don't get into a GPs waiting room as often as we used to, but one thing that is missing these days is any reading material to take the mind off WHY you are waiting to see the Doctor.  I appreciate the reasoning for the absence of magazines is that they can be a vector for the transmission of diseases, though that didn't seem to be much of a problem 60 years ago.

 

What brought it to mind was that I was browsing through a copy of Punch from October 1958 and found it rather dreary and unfunny, the humour forced through some pretty dire articles, though a couple of the cartoons "punched" through (one of a US Hillbilly playing a fiddle with his pitchfork, by Ronald Searle for example).

 

ANYHOW

 

is it possible that magazines like Punch and The Readers Digest folded through doctors not taking them any more to put in their waiting rooms...

 

[rockershovel]

33 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Given the current Health situation, we don't get into a GPs waiting room as often as we used to, but one thing that is missing these days is any reading material to take the mind off WHY you are waiting to see the Doctor.  I appreciate the reasoning for the absence of magazines is that they can be a vector for the transmission of diseases, though that didn't seem to be much of a problem 60 years ago.

 

What brought it to mind was that I was browsing through a copy of Punch from October 1958 and found it rather dreary and unfunny, the humour forced through some pretty dire articles, though a couple of the cartoons "punched" through (one of a US Hillbilly playing a fiddle with his pitchfork, by Ronald Searle for example).

 

ANYHOW

 

is it possible that magazines like Punch and The Readers Digest folded through doctors not taking them any more to put in their waiting rooms...

 

 

I don’t think so, I don’t think doctors etc actually BOUGHT them. 

[Hroth]

12 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

I don’t think so, I don’t think doctors etc actually BOUGHT them. 

 

Looking at that late-50s Punch, Its dull enough for a doctor to have a subscription as an antidote to The Lancet....

Readers Digests may have come from dispairing ex-subscribers having a house clearance.

 

[rockershovel]

I don’t think Punch was ever actually POPULAR, in the sense of enjoying a wide circulation. We had a family business as a newsagent etc with three shops in the 50s and early 60s, and I had a part-time job keeping keeping the stock and orders at a chain newsagent in the later 1960s and early 1970s, and I don’t ever recall stocking it. IIRC my first encounter with it was in the school library in Cambridge. 

 

I seem to recall that complaints about it “not being what it once was” were a well-established genre, at least as long ago as the 1930s

 

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by rockershovel

[rockershovel]

Readers Digest is still alive and  well, I find. Somehow this doesn’t particularly surprise me; it has great experience of its market and knows what they want. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by rockershovel

[Nearholmer]

58 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

I don’t think Punch was ever actually POPULAR, in the sense of enjoying a wide circulation.

 

That was my thought too, so I looked it up, and circulation peaked after WW2 (which really surprised me) at c180 000, which I think was per week.

 

Not sure what to compare that with, though, to decide whether it constitutes "popular", except that the Railway Modeller, which is popular with me, runs to c33 000 per month currently (I can't find a figure for BRM).

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

That was my thought too, so I looked it up, and circulation peaked after WW2 (which really surprised me) at c180 000, which I think was per week.

 

Not sure what to compare that with, though, to decide whether it constitutes "popular", except that the Railway Modeller, which is popular with me, runs to c33 000 per month currently (I can't find a figure for BRM).

 

Punch was originally sub-titled “the London Charivari” referring to its at times, quite acid commentary on public life - something it had quite lost, at the end. I’d compare it to Blackwood’s (which I was surprised to find, finally closed in 1980) or in some respects, The Spectator (although I wouldn’t press that too far). 

 

You might compare it, in some respects, to the practice of serialising forthcoming books in the daily press (Bridget Jones being the best-known example, although by no means the only one). 

 

Private Eye might be regarded as some sort of discreditable offspring of its earlier self, particularly the vaguely Bacchanalian  “Lord Gnome” column head (an obvious parody of Bernard Partridge’s portrayal of Mr Punch) ; Punch took considerable interest in public affairs, in its younger days. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by rockershovel

[Kickstart]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

Given the current Health situation, we don't get into a GPs waiting room as often as we used to, but one thing that is missing these days is any reading material to take the mind off WHY you are waiting to see the Doctor.  I appreciate the reasoning for the absence of magazines is that they can be a vector for the transmission of diseases, though that didn't seem to be much of a problem 60 years ago.

 

Our local doctors does have some magazines. Any interesting ones don’t last long. Occasionally have left magazines there, when they are ones I bought for a quick read with no intention of keeping.

 

All the best

 

Katy