With almost everything rationed during the Second World War, villagers at Garsington relied heavily on Arthur and Violet Parsler.

Their general store, post office and garage, known to everyone as The Shop, was a lifeline to families.

Evacuee Gerry Moore, who stayed in the village during the war, recalls: “The counter top was packed with all manner of foodstuffs, from cheese kept under a glass dome and cut on a board with a wire cutter, to tins of vegetables, corned beef and Spam.

“There were sweets and boxes full of chocolate and other goodies, cigarettes and tobacco and a cabinet with medicinal items.

“There was a place for everything and everything had its place – the only problem was Arthur could never find anything!

“Almost every food item was on ration, so points had to be cut out of the ration book and accounted for, a tedious and time-consuming task for the shopkeeper.

“As paper was scarce, no paper bags were available, so customers were expected to provide their own.

“Great use was made of old newspapers for wrapping and Arthur became very adroit at making container cones from newspapers, a skill that we children tried unsuccessfully to replicate.”

The Parslers were clearly a very busy couple.

She ran the post office, while he took charge of the shop and garage, where he sold cycle parts, screws, nuts, bolts, gardening tools, paraffin, petrol and hundreds of hardware items.

Mr Moore added: “When a customer came to the garage, Arthur would run outside, serve them and return wiping his hands on a piece of grimy rag.

“The customer in the shop would hope he hadn’t been serving paraffin or petrol.”

Garsington had three other shops at the time – Wheeler’s sweet shop, run by Mrs Burgin, where children could buy a farthing’s worth of sweets, Wheelers Garage, which had a vast stock of mechanical parts, and Clinkard’s bakery, where the smell of baking bread drew in customers like a magnet.