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The following extract is from the booklet Memories of Witham, by Janet Gyford, 1983, (also available on http://www.gyford.com/janet/books/memoriesofwitham/fulltext/) who interviewed many Witham residents in 1983, and based the book on their recollections going as far back as 1910:-
Course, I went into a shop thinking all I'd got to do was stand there and weigh a few sweets out, you know - you come down to earth - but I enjoyed it.
When I was a girl I was mad for shops - I did so want to write a bill out - you don't realise you know really, at that age.
Of course we used to add up in our heads - never had no bill head - oh yes, we'd have a whole pile of groceries on the counter and you'd just go through them - I loved mental arithmetic.
We all had good memories for prices in those days - we knew what they were - very rare we had anything ticketed up in the shop . . The customer'd ask and we'd tell them - it seems strange to you now, of course.
I used to do the banking . . the only thing I wasn't allowed to do was to do the wages up, and I know why that was - because the men were getting more than me - they used to send somebody down to do those up - I knew why - but you see in those days - they wouldn't put up with it these days, would they?
I was senior for years - when the boss was away I'd run the shop and do his work - although there was men getting more than me.
That was a big bare old shop, and it was always terribly cold, and in the winter the girls used to go upstairs round a little fire thing they'd got - if you went in he'd come out and see if you wanted anything and stand at the bottom of the stair and say 'Forward Miss, please, come along quickly!' Oh, he was ever such a polite little man.
It was a cold old shop - we was right at the top of Maldon Road, and that used to blow right through - of course in those days we never had a door closed, winter or summer. Used to be covered with chilblains.
They used to have a staff of servants, and some of the girl assistants, they used to live in, because there was a lot of attics right up at the top of the building, and they had like a little attic each, you know, a little bedsitter each.
The women had blue overalls . . My father, all he wore was a white apron - he used to almost live in that . . I mean the butter used to come in bits as big as that, and then they'd cut it up as they want it, or knock it up with a wooden sort of pat thing, and often there'd be a design on it so when they'd finished they'd pop this other one on the top of it and you'd get a nice flower on the top.
In those days they used to have the sugar in big bins, and he used to have to weigh that up - you didn't have it come in packets like they do nowadays. There used to be bins all down the side of the warehouse - granulated in one, brown sugar, lump sugar, and all those sort of things - he'd weigh that up and make that up.
The store was for your sugar and your barrels of honey - vinegar, barrels of vinegar - used to go and get a pennorth of vinegar - don't today! They took it away in a little bottle or a little jug, and then put it in a little bottle when they got home. And the syrup - we'd take a little basin.
And Mr. Hasler on the corner . . I always remember him with a huge sack of dates - well he used to pick them out with a big fork.
The syrup or anything, you'd got to be careful you didn't drop that on your shoe . . All this weighing was terrible, and the butter . . Used to have the whole cheeses and cut them down in nice pieces.
It was too hard work for me - we were all frightened off butchering . . There was the harness to clean on a Monday, and the bright-work in the shop . . all the counters scrubbed down and that sort of thing - on a Monday, cause the shop was closed mostly on a Monday.
Hooks all had to be done with silver sand, and cleaned up - you know, all the grease taken off them and shone up . . Then every day the stables had to be mucked out and new bedding put down for the horses. They had to be fed and watered - any cattle that was in the yard had to be fed as well . . cause very often they had a sort of reserve perhaps a few sheep in a pen, and the pigs in a sty, and perhaps a couple of bullocks in the pound, you see. Father got picked up by one once by his braces - in the yard - one charged him in the yard.
Prior to Lyons ice-cream, they used to make all their own ice-cream . . used to have ice-cream powder . . you just poured the milk on and stirred it, and then you let it stand to get cold, and then you poured it into this container. lt'd got like a beater thing inside, and you put the lid on, and then you'd stand it in this bucket, and then you'd break all ice up and put round it, and freezing salt . . and then you sat there and you turned this handle - after the style of the old-fashioned butter making - and you turned and turned till it got stiff. That made your ice cream - it used to be beautiful cause it was only just milk and powder, you see.
I served an apprenticeship there, which of course they don't do today, and I mean then, instead of having the material all come on rolls or that . . we used to have to what they call block it . . onto boards . . it all just came in folds, the material. And there was ever such an art in doing this, because you know when you go to wind anything on it usually gets one way, and all that sort of thing. I mean it sounds funny to be an apprentice to a drapers' shop, but not in those days. And I mean, I learnt to do sale tickets . . and to do window dressing, you see, and all that sort of thing.
Oh, we thought it was wonderful in those days - when we'd finished all the stocktaking and done all these sheets, he used to come in armed with a big slab of chocolate for everybody - you know, the real big slabs like there used to be years ago - and we used to think it was a wonderful treat.
© Copyright Janet Gyford
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