Memories of Childhood
by John Appleby

~ 21 ~

A man called George Fenby was our grocery order man. He would visit every home once a week, on foot, and take the weekly orders. He was a pale, dapper man, neatly attired, as all tradesmen were, and he would greet us all and open a tall narrow hardbacked book. Each page listed the whole gamut of provisions available. He would lick his pencil and proceed to recite alphabetically from the long list, pausing every now and then with a cocked eyebrow and say such things as, "we've got a bargain in salmon this week". Tinned Canadian salmon was always a great summer favourite. The list must have ended with Zebo, a poisonous black liquid containing lead used for burnishing the cast iron fronts of stoves and fire bars. My poor mother would kneel there with cast off old gloves and face roasting in front of the fire brushing this foul stuff on to the bars. Anyhow, Mr. Fenby would slap the book shut and encircle it with a band of garter elastic. We children would whisper to Mam, and she would beg perhaps, a sheet of used carbon paper, which would provide us with hours of delight.

The next member of the cast was a man called Andrew Bell, whom I feared greatly. He was gruff and grey-haired, and made his arrival known with a great shout of "where's wor Jackie?" He would have arrived with the grocery order. He wore a blue denim jacket and horse-smelling corduroy britches and leather gaiters. He had a roseate blotched face and beady eyes, which darted from side to side under the peak of his cap, in search of me. I would cringe behind my mother's apron, terrified that those ruddy iron fists would reach out and cut off my young life and I'd wonder why Mam laughed - I wasn't amused! He really was a kind man, and often left a sweet or two for me. He would bring into the house from his flat cart in the back lane, one or more pinewood butter boxes full of groceries. In wet weather he would wear a heavy sack across his shoulders as a cape. A copy of the original order form would be peeping out amongst the tins, bottles and bags. The meat was delivered in the Co-op butcher's cart.

We would follow Mam out of the back gate when we heard the butcher's call - all tradesmen used to shout, and they were recognised by the way they called out. This cart, of varnished wood, was two wheeled and high and enclosed, with an opening back and it was drawn by a black horse. A hinged flap was lifted up, and inside, the meat hung on hooks, and was reached by the butcher standing on a little metal step. The offal was in separate white trays, and there were black puddings and sausages hanging on hooks. Everything was weighed on a swinging spring balance scale. The milk from the Co-op was hauled around the street in a chariot like cart, open to the weather, and carrying a couple of huge metal milk churns. The housewives emerged from their back gates to have the milkman ladle milk into their jugs, from one pint or half-pint measures. It was unpasteurised milk. In the summer and in the absence of refrigeration, this milk could sometimes turn sour before the evening in hot thundery weather. If this were the case, my mother would turn this congealing milk into a white muslin square and hang it up in the back end to weep its way to become delicious cottage cheese.

© 2003 John Appleby, New Zealand

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