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This comes from Jennifer Venville Nicol (Venville being her maiden name), now living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, who lived in Hidson Road very close to Stockland Green, Erdington in the years following World War II. She was born in 1941.
With so many local shopping areas losing their business to shopping malls and 'big box' chain stores, the local shopping areas that were so important to life during the Second World War and beyond should have a place in the memory file. Many people will remember these shops I'm sure.
I lived off Marsh Hill, about a ten-minute walk from Stockland Green, from l941until l963. During the war years and for several years after, when ration books were in use for food, clothing and furniture, an area such as Stockland Green provided goods to the locals who did not want to stray too far away from their favourite grocer, very often because if something generally unavailable was to appear then regular customers got first pick.
Walking from Bleak Hill onto Marsh Hill one encountered the first shop, Bramley's High Class Sweets and Chocolates. The window dressing was very nice with long satin drapes and perfectly poised chocolate boxes, etc.
Very often it looked as though Cadbury's had a staff that dressed windows in such shops at that time. Unfortunately, during the war years there was very little for sale in these shops. Cigarettes were hard to come by and were often kept 'under the counter' for preferred customers.
You always had to behave in Mr. and Mrs. Bramley's store. He would not always accept the empty pop bottles that we brought in. He had this theory, as did many similar shopkeepers, that unless you had purchased the pop there in the first place they were not bound to return your deposit.
How they knew whether you did or didn't remains a mystery. Once we found a soda siphon, there was quite a good deposit on those but they were very, very rare finds. Mr. Bramley wanted to see my father before he would return the deposit!!!!! He told my father that boys often used to break into the yard behind the Stockland Inn looking for such items.
Bramley's had a telephone box outside their store I remember. and they also put in chewing gum machines later on at the end of the l940's.
Next door to Bramley's was Howard's, this was a ladies hairdressers and where I went with my mother to have my hair trimmed, and where she went from time to time for a cold permanent wave. This meant an all day event in those days.
We would go and visit her throughout the day as she was attached to the permanent wave machine from which wires ran and were attached to the customers hair. It literally took hours and hours. The place smelled like a chemistry lab.....ugh. Overpowering ammonia smells.
Next door to Howard's was Trappett's the grocer and greengrocer. This was my mother's preferred place for her custom in those days. Mr. George Trappett lived with his family above the store. He and his wife ran the shop.
Groceries were all behind the counter and many items came in bulk and had to be measured out. Large wheels of cheese, lines of bags of sugar packed in their blue bags, usually weighed out by the pound, and large blocks of white lard that looked like a huge block of ice cream.
How I wanted to use the cheese wire to cut off those chunks. He sold lots of different fruits and vegs. No plastic bags in those days, everyone took their own shopping bags with them. Pomegranates and coconut were very exotic for those days. During the war years it was mostly vegetables and apples.
My father, who used to smoke, bought his cigarettes there. Players and Senior Service were often kept under the counter for him, and when those were not available along with the Woodbines then he would send a package of Turkish Cigarettes called 'Pashas'. My father did not really like Turkish cigarettes but they were better than none at all.!!!!
Jennifer Nicol, British Columbia, Canada, 2001
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