Your view: was food shopping better in the past?

Thank you John for a most interesting and accurate resume of our past, exactly as I remember it. I particularly like your analysis of the changing trends, all very true. Certainly in my present circumstance it is a little and often, not necessarily at the best price, but at the most convenient store available.

Dear John, Very interesting and accurate report of our past. I think your analysis is true.
Nowadays its great for people like me to have their orders delivered after I order on line each week. It makes people with mobility problems able to be more independent.

What I find fascinating is how multi-layered and ‘class-stratified’ shopping has become over the last few decades. The one good thing I would say about shopping in the 1950’s is how egalitarian it was, especially in grocery, greengrocery, fishmongery and hardware stores. Most people were not averse to using market stalls and itinerant traders to make the pennies go further, and department stores particularly appealed to the masses with everything from dolls eyes and flypapers to napery and drapery [via millinery and haberdashery on the second floor].

Some shopkeepers advertised that they were ‘high class butchers’ but I don’t know whether that was because they came from the top drawer themselves or appealed to customers who could run a monthly account. I suppose there was always a bit of one-upmanship among butchers because many people could hardly afford to eat meat. Other shops promoted themselves as ‘family butchers’ but I didn’t like the sound of that; I always thought the meat we ate should come from an animal. Interestingly, butchers’ shops seem to have survived better than most other high street food shops like grocers, dairies, greengrocers and fishmongers, and wool shops, toy shops and tailors.

Today shopping has divided into Waitrose and M&S at one end and Poundland etc at the other. The Waitrose customer won’t be seen in Poundland and vice versa. Similar gradations exist in the intermediate echelons. There was no snobbery about Woolworth’s and they sold excellent bacon.

John, you remember “Eggs were often ‘off’. I could go on”. In university holidays I used to work for a small wholesale grocer, packing and delivering orders for, mainly, corner shops. Commodities ranged from tinned goods, sugar, cheese and so on stored in old premises on several levels shared with several families of rats. Not a good start. He held one of the restricted licences then as an egg packing station. That involved collecting eggs from the farms, inspecting them (a light behind showed if they were OK or not) and then packing them on trays in large boxes that were date stamped. Quite regularly these boxes went past their date without being sold, so the eggs were simply transferred to a new box with a new date.

I am now very particular about the source and quality of food we buy. I regret to say I am wary about small shops.

John, you remind me of things you used to be able to buy in places like hardware and haberdashery.

Until recently, we had a local hardware store that stocked all sorts of odd things. They probably didn’t sell well but if you needed an o-ring or screw, he had them. You could go in and say “I am looking for something to do……* and he would have all sorts of suggestions. While we were in the shop we usually came out with an additional purchase as it was a great place to browse. Unfortunately he has retired, the new owner has had a clear-out and now sells the same common stuff as every other hardware store with plastic containers outside. I have now been there several times and come out empty-handed.

Recently I needed a small hinge and the only place to get one was on the internet that took 2 purchases before I got the right one.

When I installed a new optical drive in my PC, it came without screws. The local hardware store and B&Q had none and I had to find them out of other equipment.

I do miss some of the old-fashioned shops where you could buy anything.

We used to have a local hardware store just as you described. However odd the requirement or how sketchy the description, the attendant always seemed to find a suitable product. Unfortunately it went the way of the others and closed down last year. The day of the specialist shop seems to have come to an end, sadly.