HISTORY FROM PARISHIONERS

Shopping in Leigh (when there were shops!)
This has been reproduced from an article in the Leigh Post, the Parish Magazine
by Caryl Brain

After the Christmas orgy, with all the eating, drinking and present giving - not to mention shopping, the conversations with our friends led to the inevitable question "How did you manage when you came to live in Leigh 42 years ago?"

We lived in Dawes Green, so the General Stores and Bakery was an important part of our lives.  The bakery was built by Sir Henry Bell of Mynthurst, to replace the bakery after a fire at Shellwood,  The smell of baking was such a draw to customers, irresistible, especially on Saturday mornings when freshly baked doughnuts, covered in sugar, became essential for mid morning coffee break.  This shop sold a variety of groceries and dry goods.  I remember taking an empty sherry bottle to be filled from the cask, dry or sweet.  Medium sherry was a matter of taking half a bottle from each cask and shaking it together.  The sherry was a much appreciated gift for my aged mother-in-law in her nursing home.  The shop was a great place to meet other villagers and to catch up on the news and gossip.  Now, in 2005, it is an office, and the bakery is a private house.

To enlarge click on picture

Mrs Gurney at the door of her Post Office in Leigh.

The Post Office, until recently, was in a private house.  Living next door to the
Post Office in Dawes Green brought its own responsibilities.  During the Postmistress' vacation the temporary postmistress left a suitcase of valuable postal orders, savings certificates etc to be put under the bed for safe keeping.  There were no safes in those days.  The Post Office has now sadly gone from our village, only after a series of valiant attempts to keep the service.

The butcher from Brockham Lane delivered once a week meat and groceries, and if you needed a prescription from the chemist, he collected that too.  The Co-op baker called regularly with a huge basket on his arm, tempting you to buy cakes, buns as well as bread, and the fishmonger's van came each week, usually on a Thursday.  Farms supplied eggs and cream.  The daily delivery of milk to the door step was provided by the Express Dairy.  There were two other callers with suitcases bulging with their wares for sale: the exotic Indian gentleman and the Kleeneze man.  The garage supplied petrol and village news.

Two district nurses ran a clinic in the Village Hall to which a doctor came when children needed injections.  Otherwise it was weighing, measuring, buying concentrated orange juice, black currant and rosehip syrup, and dispensing advice.  I have been told that when the clinic was held in the chapel/brownie/scout hut adjacent to the layby, dental services were provided, teeth being drilled by a foot pedal operating drill.

Before our arrival the Cyclist Cafe in Flanchford Road served teas, lemonade and sweets.  Meat was sold from a Meadvale butcher's van parked by the Plough Pub up to ten o'clock each Saturday, and on Christmas Eve selling turkeys.  After the decline in farm horses and horse drawn vehicles the forge became a petrol garage providing the first taxi service and private car hire.

 To enlarge click on photgraph

The Forge Garage which finally closed in the early 2000s.  It was last owned by Mr and Mrs Padmore and was a centre for knowing what was happening in the village.

The General Stores and Post Office on the Village Green was run by Mrs. Gurney.  Her shop was an Aladdin’s Cave of goods and delights, often only to be reached by a ladder or by excursions out to the back store room.  She had everything you might need.  However, little boys were in fear and awe of her, and she would stand no nonsense.

One dear old lady living at Shellwood told me how the whole family walked to Reigate to get provisions once a month.  The children took it in turns to ride in the large perambulator on the outward journey, but on the homeward journey everyone walked, the pram being full to overflowing.

Roads were not dangerous in those days since cars were so infrequent.  Our dog slept on the grass verge; and the biggest hazard was cattle moving on the hoof along the road from field to field, and having to shut your front gates to save your lawn and flowers from destruction.

The delivery to the front door is a distant memory, and the friendly meeting of neighbours walking to and from the local shops is greatly missed.  Times have changed.


 

 

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