Local food

When I was a child in 1960 there were no supermarkets. The milkman called each day, a bread van came twice a week from the local bakery and Jackie Iball stopped in each street with a van full of fruit and vegetables for sale. Most people grew potatoes in their gardens. There were apple trees around the village and scrumping was a thing!

In Mold junction a cooperative shop opposite my primary school, served the two streets of railway houses. I remember the thick wooden counter at my eye level and being bought a penguin biscuit for school snack. The streets also had their own post office and the children saved money in the post office savings bank. Age 11, I was trusted with my friend to take the money down the street to the post office after the Friday collection.

At sometime during my primary years the first supermarket opened in Chester. It was Kwik Save in Handbridge. A drive away. Possibly a bus trip but you went once a week and bought boxes full of food so to use it you needed a car. Soon after, Tesco opened in Grosvenor precinct, stack it high and sell it cheap was their motto. We all bought into the progress promised by the supermarkets. Ready salted crisps we’re joined by cheese and onion then salt and vinegar. What! Can you imagine the excitement of prawn cocktail crisps! I remember the shocking arrival of yoghurt. A little underwhelming until the arrival of strawberry and raspberry flavours!

When I consider the implication of these changes, they were huge. Food became cheaper and more varied. People gradually stopped growing food and the local shops and deliveries ceased. We needed our cars to shop and lost the connection with the source of our food. Why was it cheap? Who was paying the price?