TinnerStreet

Have you noticed that shopping in Kiveton Park has changed greatly over the last sixty years?  Well of course it has, you reply, sixty years is a long time.  There were no supermarkets in the village at that time anyway.  But, I say, it goes much deeper than that.  Shopping was just … different.

I base my thoughts on the family of my grandma and grandad, who lived in Maple Road, half way up on the right hand side.  My grandma had both her legs amputated above the knee, so my Uncles Levi and Harold did her shopping for her.  They were both well built, and both mainly blind.  They dressed the same, with charcoal grey trousers, charcoal grey waistcoats, and a collarless white shirt.  One of them would set off for the shopping, and walk down Wales Road, doing the shopping on the way back.  Of course, time was of no importance, and if they had forgotten anything, then they would go back for it, or go the next day.  But time was not a major problem for most people at that time, it is only in much later years that we all rush everywhere, or use a car.  There were few cars in the village at that time.  It was never a problem for anyone to stop for a chat with a neighbour or someone in the village who they knew, and Levi and Harold would stop a number of times for a chat with various people.

Wales Road, where my Uncles did the shopping, but photo taken recently

Now if anyone wished to see them, or talk about any particular point, they could always be certain to find them sitting on the bench which at that time was between Chestnut Avenue and the lane which ran along the side of Les Hudson’s fish shop – though I don’t know if Les was in charge at that time – and then behind the houses on that side of Wales Road.   There was one point which always made me wonder.  They were both blind, but they went shopping.  The various shopkeepers would serve them, take their money, and then give them their change.  There was never the thought that the change given would not be right.  Even those few shopkeepers or assistants who may have had a shady reputation would be trusted in the case of my uncles to do the right thing.

Around that time, my mam and dad, my brother Jimmy and I lived at number 9 Thomas Street, which ran off Pit Lane just past the Post Office.  Come to think of it, Thomas Street still runs off Pit Lane but there is no Post Office.   It was a great place to live, as the back door opened onto the triangular field, which was the centre of entertainment for those in Thomas Street and South View.   In our case, it was our only door, as what would be the front room of number 9 was taken up as a shop by Edna Cheetham and you will all remember Edna.  She actually lived in number 7.  Along the west side of the field, there was a high wall, though it was not really a wall as such, but the back wall of the toilets and coal houses of Carrington Terrace.  That wall acted more importantly as our goal posts in football season, and with the judicious use of a piece of chalk, our wicket in cricket season.  When you think back, cricket was not shown on television, because there was no television, or heard on the wireless, but many of the young lads who learned their cricket against that wall became very good cricketers in later life, including two who played most of their cricket in Australia.

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