Food

'Co-operative Cottages', Enderby.

Interviewer: So where would you be getting all your food from?

Mrs White: Well, there was the co-operative shop and there were the little village shops. Mr Young’s shop was marvellous because it had that lovely old fashioned smell, he’d got the big cheeses on the counter and the meat hanging up. It was at the time, you know, before self-service supermarkets, when you sort of took your turn and he cut off the pieces that you required and went and fetched your bag of sugar and your bag of raisons. Oh, I can see that shop now with a great big brown pole down the centre. And biscuits were not wrapped in packets, they were in the tins and he weighed you out as many from whatever tin you wanted. To me these things were natural but I mean, you young people haven’t seen a lot of these things have you? And of course everything was in brown paper bag and greaseproof, you know, no such thing as plastic bags and polythene in those days. Brown paper, my goodness, you rarely see it now do you?

Interviewer: Did your father grow his own vegetables in his garden?

Mrs White: Oh yes, yes, he loved his garden. Used to grow all our own veg. We had soft fruit as well, you know, like raspberries and gooseberries and currants, and then he had an allotment as well at one time. So he really used to keep us going.

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