Guv’nor Willis’s shop in St Ebbe’s, Oxford, was one of the scruffiest around, but it was still popular with children.
They flocked to the shop in Commercial Road to buy a fizzy drink for a penny and treacle toffee he mixed and made himself.
Rosemary Russell-Vines, who lived in Chaundy’s Place, off Paradise Square, writes: “Guv was a large man who wore a grubby apron. The toffee sat on a tray in that grubby shop and we would buy it and enjoy it.
“None of us ever suffered any ill-effects, even though it was an odd scruffy place, all very Dickensian.”
In her memoirs, Growing up in St Ebbe’s 1941-59, she recalls being sent to Barnes’ shop in Castle Street to get sugar, tea and other groceries with the ‘Barnes’ book’.
“Looking back, the book was an early form of credit. The groceries were put in the book and you paid on pay day.”
Other shops she recalls are Vokins in Charles Street, Bubbs and Rogers in Commercial Road, and Macfisheries at the top of Castle Street and New Road.
More St Ebbe’s memories soon.
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