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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:-
We did have a horse and cart and a greengrocery round . . You know where the fire station is up Hatfield Road? - Well, my father had a bit of ground up there . . we used to grow a lot of vegetables and we used to go round - my brother used to go round selling them twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday - course I used to go round with them Saturdays.
The man that kept the Victoria - he used to sell faggots of sticks - he used to take us to Faulkbourne . . to get these faggots . . and we used to get the violets and the primroses and he used to get the faggots. They used to go round selling them. The faggots were very valuable that time of day . . mother'd put a whole one of those in the oven at a time.
He started business in my aunt's house . . They used to go round - 'Johnny fortnights', we used to call them - they used to go round and people used to pay a shilling a week - they got a tremendous big round, you know - people out in the country, they'd have these clothes . . They'd take an order one week, and then next week they'd take what was ordered - you know, shoes, or dress or whatever - they'd take it round sort of on appro., and if they decided they'd have it they paid a shilling a week.
Every Saturday morning . . Moores . . had like a closed in van with two horses, they used to come up from Kelvedon, and they used to stop in Witham, and I used to have to go up, on a Saturday, stop on the corner of Maldon Road where the White Hart is . . My mother used to send for her butter and marge, all at the Maypole in Chelmsford, and I used to have to take the money in the envelope with the name on, and order inside - if you bought a pound of margarine then, you had half a pound give you, free, in them days. And I used to have to go up there at night, about six, and wait for Moore to come back from Chelmsford, and get the parcel.
As a boy I've been on the carriers' cart . . an old Witham ambulance one time of day, with a wooden body, they turned into a little truck . . to Chelmsford. We used to go and stop at the Two Brewers which is at Springfield - in the pub yard . . the driver used to go round the shops himself and gather a few bits and pieces . . Mr. Moore and the driver they would both disappear . . between twelve and two or something, like this . . they used to buy a few things for people, and the others were delivered to the van, the bigger stuff.
In those days it was a regular Saturday night affair to go out shopping - the shops'd keep open till about eight - most people'd go out after they got paid, I suppose - do it Saturday evenings.
I used to take stock of that every Saturday night - sugar - we all had something we used to take stock of - of course we didn't get finished till ten o'clock at night . . Some of it was in sacks, you see, so that was in hundredweights, but you had to count all the loose stuff up, and work that down into hundredweights as well. Some done fruit, some done jams and marmalades, some done biscuits, see everybody had their own job that they used to do every Saturday night. And the men on the other side used to weigh all the bacon and that sort of stuff.
We'd be open till seven or eight. Gradually towards the latter part of the time they used to close a little bit earlier, but at one time they used to be open till eight or nine at night on a Saturday . . And we used to kill by candlelight in the winter time. Christmas time the whole family, or us elder boys anyway, used to be enlisted to hold candles so that they could see to skin the beasts as they were being slaughtered and dressed - very often I've been holding a candle there twelve o'clock at night when they were killing the Christmas beef.
I used to wait for my father to come home off his round, after I'd done my round on a Saturday afternoon - I'd wait for my father to come home, and when we came home I would take his horse and feed and water it. If it was summer time I'd bring it up here and turn it out into the field, and many the time I've been walking past the Church clock at twelve o'clock at night.
© Copyright Janet Gyford
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