Our nearest shopping street was Ladypool Rd, and the first ones facing were Peacocks and Woolworths - those two places were important to me as I realised how easy it was to steal, and decided I wouldn't. When I was 'out for the day and overnight' I did steal - food - from bottles of milk to fruit and veg like carrots from shops, and scrumping of course, but scrumping wasn't 'theft' in my book. I thank my lucky stars I was never caught. I never took anything from Ladypool Rd.
Other important shops were the Home & Colonial, George Mason, C0-0p,Wimbushes (every Good Friday for hot + buns before they shut at 11 am), Maturis - every type of hardware imaginable from a tin bath to a pot mender, and my favourite, Jack Morris butcher. As he was up early at the market, he always had good meat. If I was passing and he saw me, he beckoned me in and cut a long triangular strip off one of those massive tins of Argentine corned beef. He owned Coldbath Farm on the way to Swanshurst Park....a remarkable man, I could go on about him all day. The really authentis shop on the corner of Alfred St was Westwoods greengrocers, alway s very busy. Does anyone remember a poor deaf and dumb chap who worked there - he always had a smile, was quick and would pick you out ''the good 'uns'' - everyone called him "The Dummy'', this was affection, not a put down (he couldn't hear it anyway0 - in the mid 1950s he'd have been about 40. Over to the rest of you...if I don't stop now, I never shall!
tramp