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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:-
My father used to do all the shopping . . they used to send it - oh always send it, you never carried anything, always send it. And he'd taste the butter and he'd taste the cheese, and if he didn't like it he didn't have it . . They used to cut butter by the pound in those days - it wasn't packed, you know - beautiful butter . . oh, packed and sent over to the White Hart, see, he'd put in there - oh yes, four wheeler was always full up - they'd put it in. Father used to say he was ready at 10 o'clock and we used to come home about 12 . . We always had a four wheel . . it's like an open carriage thing - it's two here and two in the front, and the horses just there . . I never went in the White Hart, I was not allowed in those days.
Oh, they'd come and they'd say 'Well what have you got?' - they relied on you to sell them . . they relied on you to serve them with the good stuff - they never queried it, you see . . I've had people come in and they'd say - for a special purpose - 'How much fruit did I have last year?' . . We used to run their houses, yes we did, often, oh yes. 'And you want so and so', we'd say - oh yes - and they relied on you to do it.
They used to send their order in, people with a bit of money and that, see, used to order what they wanted, big joints of beef and all that . . they'd get three or four joints a week, some of them . . They used to live like fighting cocks in those days.
If they'd got visitors to lunch at Terling Place, they'd perhaps have a saddle of mutton or something like that - about half a sheep - half a sheep for lunch - or if they'd got a shooting party or anything like that. We used to call there about three times a week.
We used to have the ponies and carts to go all round the big places like Faulkbourne Hall - that was one journey - you couldn't take any more . . a cart full of meat . . a whole sheep at different times . . At Faulkbourne Hall and Braxted Park I used to go into the kitchens with these loads of. meat . . with these big old places . . and deliver the meat, and the old cook used to often give me basins full of dripping . . they had so much dripping they didn't know what to do with it - beautiful stuff.
And the housekeepers of all the big places - the cooks - you always kept in with the cooks and the housekeepers, to get your trade . . You see, Terling Place - you'd keep in with the cook, keep in with the housekeeper.
I think they built up this business by calling on people and asking for their custom, which my father used to do if he found there was an empty - a new person moved in anywhere, he always used to go round and call for their custom.
You know Faulkbourne Hall? - Well, they were big customers of ours at Christmas time - the old lady was alive . . she used to give every household in the village the ingredients for Christmas puddings - so we used to have that job at the shop, to do up these labels. There'd be for a two person house, for a three person house, and they were all different sized parcels . . We used to say 'Oh dear!' - late at night - 'Now we've got Parker's puddings to do' . . The shop delivered to Faulkbourne Hall - I think the villagers had to go and fetch them.
I think Spurges really had - had got a good reputation . . for quite a few miles around, you know . . specially for their clothes, and specially . . in the Manchester department. People used to say 'Oh, you can 't beat Spurges', for towels or sheets, or sheeting by the yard, blankets, and things like that.
Oh, and they'd let you have hats on approval . . they had these great big hat boxes . . sort of made of very stiff cardboard or something, and with a handle too, and you could get about four or five hats in there, and the customers were allowed to have them sent home to try with their dresses or coats or whatever they'd got, to see if they liked them, you see, or if their husband liked the hat . . You can't have things on approval now from a shop . . but I mean, you could go into Spurges and try two or three frocks on, or a coat on, and you'd say 'Oh well, I don't know if I really like this - I don't know if my husband'd like it' - and you'd say 'Well, would you like to take it on approval?' . . The shop boy'd go back for it the next day, you see.
There was a Lady . . oh, she'd never come in - the butler, the footman or the chauffeur used to shout . . and the manager used to have to go out onto the path and take her things to look at, you know . . oh we had to bow and scrape to people . . Or sometimes the coachman used to bring the order himself, but he was always, you know, in this cockade hat.
She used to sit outside and bark her orders out, you know - occasionally she'd come in, and everyone was scurrying around, you know 'Yes my lady, no my lady' - we used to make faces behind her back.
You were very much looked down on as a tradesman by some of them - the average Witham person, I got on all right with them, but . . one or two of them, they were - very aristocratic - I reckon it was five or six years before we got in . . oh yes, they were very high and mighty . . were of the old school, very much so.
There was a certain gentleman lived up Wickham Bishops, which was in those days a very sort of elite place - he was running up bills, and I sent him an account in, time after time, and got nothing from him, and . . on Saturday evenings when the shop was closed, I'd just pop over to the Spread Eagle and have a Guinness . . I'd be this side and he'd be round the saloon side with all his pals, you know . . so I'd had enough, and I thought 'Well, if he can treat all those chaps to Scotches, why can't he pay me?' I went round and tapped him, and, oh, he was furious! He went to Bright's - told them to 'Admonish that young pup - accosted me in a public house!'
Then we used to have quite a lot of motoring customers that used to come down to the coast to Clacton and Frinton. You used to do quite a bit of hamper trade - used to get a lot of people going through to the coast in those days and take hampers - they used to call in.
There was a person living up Collingwood Road and she used to take people's babies - Lord somebody or Lady somebody's baby - and one morning she came into my shop - I was busy - and she said 'Will you hold this baby for me? Be very careful' she said, 'I just want to pop into the bank'. She said 'Be very careful, because he's an Earl'. So I thought 'My goodness!' There I had to stand - beautiful robes, beautiful. You know, I can picture him - while she went into the bank.
© Copyright Janet Gyford
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