Betty Ablett
Betty talks about Woking's greengrocers

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The highlight of our lives, when we were young, was on Thursdays coming home from school, getting washed, changed, put our second best shoes on, second best coats or whatever, and the order was placed at the grocers - The World Stores - for the following week. We used to go to the butchers and place the order and they came down Saturday morning you see.

So, of course, in Chertsey Road in my day, there was seven grocers. You started on the left hand side going up, you got Hodder’s, you got Perk’s, you got the International and then later you had Sainsbury’s. On the right hand side going up you had the World Stores, you had the Maypole and at the top The Central Stores. So, of course, during the War there were plenty of shops to queue outside.

The butter was made up in pounds by the man behind the counter with great big pats of butter and it was always nice and hard when it arrived. The sugar was in the three-cornered bag weighed out, it wasn't all packed up you see; currants were put in a three-cornered bag; raisins. You see, it was all loose, it had to be packed up. When you got it, you unpacked it and stored it where you wanted to.