One of the other shops I remember from childhood stood in Langdale Road and was called Stubbs's it was a little walk around store that sold almost everything from firelighters to bacon.

Mr Stubbs's used to allow us tick until the end of the week when the family were able to pay it off, most of the time!

For a few pennies I ran errands for one of the many old ladies in Kingsley Road called Mrs. Rutter. It was always the same shopping list, a quarter of Spam, two ounces of cheese and a small brown loaf.

The shop assistant at Stubbs's knew the list so well that she asked if it was for Mrs Rutter, and if it was she would add on extra piece of Spam or bit of extra cheese.

Mind you the same assistant could be very stern, when I ran all the way there for a bar of the hard green washing soap for my mother to wash nappies and was a halfpenny short, I was soon sent to get the allusive halfpenny.

On saying that small businesses were quite generous in those days, and always gave you good service to keep your custom.

The butcher at the time was called Glover's. It was a traditional butchers with sawdust on its floor, it was a good butcher's.

Very rarely could we afford the stewing steak but when we did it made a wonderful stew.

Most of the time in those days, being from a poor family, we called in Glover's for a bone for the dog!

This we would take home and boil to make a thin stew, only then did we give the bone to the dog.

I had the feeling Mr Glover knew my poor family circumstances, because he never charged us even if there was meat on the bones.

These little acts of kindness helped us survive through the most difficult of times.