Shopping and Money

you could get jobs easy then. I mean, if you left school one week, you was at work the next week. I know all you young ones cant imagine what it was like. When I first went to work I earned 10 shillings a week. I used to give my mum 7/6 and I had half a crown. But you could do a lot with that. Used to pay a shilling for a pair of stockings [with seams up the backs].Tights werent heard of then. And you used to be able to buy a box we all laugh now, used to be called Phulnana powder. Only a little tiny box, but that only used to be tuppence, if you wanted to make your face up and things like that. And then when you went to the pictures on a Saturday, we used to then buy 5 Weights, and they were only tuppence. And used to be sixpence to get into the pictures, so your half a crown went ever such a long way.

the Trocadera used to have films, a stage show, all for sixpence. We used to think that was a lot of money, sixpence was fantastic.

The rag man used to come round [If] you took a little coat down or something, he would give you a hapenny or a penny. That used to be all right.

And the ice cream man, Walls ice cream use to come round. It was a three-wheeler. It was one that he sat on and two wheels in the front, and you could get ice cream. They were only about a penny or tuppence.

1963 when I moved in my rent was 9/6d a week, I was working as a shift worker for London Electricity Board then, and my wage , average wage would be ten pound a week, so 9/6d or 10s of that was rent, it was quite a fair proportion of what you had.

Halfway House was [Edward Henry] buildings at one timeHalfway House is a slang word and not a very nice word really. The Halfway House was for people who are down on their luck through debts or something and they was put in there by Lambeth it had gates either side and it was no mans land to everybody, milkman couldnt go in there, postman couldnt go in there, debt collectors, even rent collectors didnt go in there

[Around this area on a Monday, in the pubs it used to be womens dayThey used to go in and peel the potatoes in the pubs.]

thered be a reason for it really, because on Monday morning [they] would have probably took the bed sheets and the husbands suit and their best dress or something into the pawn shop, so they would have had a few bob like, taking advantage of having a few bob before the old man come home and took it off you to spend it himself in the pub.

Lambeth Walk area itself, that was a very poor area, wealthy in life, but poor in money if you know what I mean.

We used to go shopping every day. We had no refrigerators at all then. Just a little safe in the sort of cellar where youd have your coal one end, cos it was biggish, and your little safe out there and buy what ever you had put in there. Used to be cold out there so it used to keep it. But youd buy every day, not like now

every Christmas wed have two great big chickens although wed get a turkey as well And you got those up The Cut, the last thing on Christmas Eve, they were still selling about midnight on Christmas Eve Davy Greggs, you could get things in there quite cheap the end of the day, couldnt you? Thats next to the Old Vic. It was fantastic. A great big shop, wasnt it.

On every counter, when you went in, youd have tinned stuff and that up this end, teas and sugar. That side used to be butter and ham butter and eggs were round the corner, and the cheese and the bacon was on that side. A chair at each end, for the elderly ladies that would be sitting down and they would sit there and be waited on. Mr Gregg used to come, he was a very tiny little man, and if he thought somebody wasnt being served he used to say, See to Mrs so and so, and Get a chair! I mean, you were treated as a customer.

Oh we did used to like Mr Gregg. And then youd go down to the greengrocers and then youd go down to the butchers, you see. So you could go right through. But the thing was, you always had to queue up as well, and there used to be a little man that used to do the butter, and the one that did the ham, and hed come out and hed make such a show of sharpening the knives, and theyd all shout, Come on, hurry up, weve got to get home for dinner. And he cut ham - wafer thin, wasnt it?

on Saturdays they sold off anything cheap. I know my sisters used to go there just before they closed at 5 oclock on Saturdays, they sold things that much cheaper.

we had a place called David Greggs in Waterloo Road, which is now the Ministry of Healths offices, Wellington House I think its called. We used to have a big place there. But otherwise, mostly it was all little stalls or little shopsThe markets degenerated a lot because the Cut used to start at Blackfriars and go down to Waterloo Road, and then from Waterloo Road it used to go down the Lower Marsh right down to Westminster Bridge Road.

We got the traditional jellied eel shop round here, with the two Cockneys. Weve still got the jellied eel, pie and mash shop. Thats still is there in The Cut. And then there was various stalls, shops that used to sell saveloys and pease pudding and black pudding and all that sort of thing

But life revolved with markets here. If you was a kid in them days, life was hell when it come to mum doing the cooking, cos mum never bought a weeks shopping. No mum in this area bought a weeks shopping. For one thing she couldnt afford it, because she had to buy as the money was available. But my motherwould start making a stew. Id already, or one of brothers had already bought the meat, bit of scrag end of beef or something like that, wed have the meat indoors. Then it would be, Go round the corner and get a pennyworth of pot herbs. So youd go round to the greengrocer and get a pennyworth of potherbs, which is carrots and onions and a turnip or a swede, something like that. Youd fetch that back. Then it would be, Oh, go along the grocers and get a granny Edwards, and then youd go and get a granny Edwards which was like a soup sort of cube, bigger than an Oxo cube, like that, put that in. Oh, go down the bakers, I think well have a loaf of bread. Youd go down the bakers and get a loaf of bread. And thats all we was doing, all the time, running backwards and forwards, getting pennyworths and tuppences of food.

In them days you didnt know what you was going to have for Sunday on Saturday, because youd wait and wait till about nine oclock, then youd go down the market to find out what they was selling off cheap. So if beef was being sold off cheap, or legs of lamb, thats what you had. It was a case of juggling your pennies. I can remember having to go to the shop and buy three cracked eggs, cos they was cheaper than three whole eggs. Go down and get a pennyworth of marmalade in a jar, or two pennyworth of Piccalilly in a jar, you know, youd take your own basin and get it filled up.

[The Festival of Britain] was exciting - it was another thing to do It was quite invigorating to go there because there was all new things and things that was well beyond majority of peoples control. There were exhibits of motor cars and things like that, and they was well beyond the average working mans views, used to have to tram and the bus. There was other modern things, washing machines, refrigerators and electric irons and things like that, again which was well beyond most other peoples anticipation.