Cherry Rogers remembers a time when deliveries to your door were common place.

For our grandparents and parents, ordering your shopping and having it delivered was quite normal.  The internet was non-existent but almost everything could be delivered to the door.

I can remember the knife grinder coming round.  He came once a year on a bike which, when he pedalled, could turn the grinding wheel.  Nana always had the scissors, the shears, the sheep shears and the lawn mower blades all sharpened and re-set ready for the lawn mowing and grave trimming season.  Graves were done once a fortnight.

Tag Elmer delivered milk from a churn on his bike, dispensing milk from measures which hung on the churn.  His name was Taggart Somme.  He and his brother Don and sister May lived at Mill Hill, with the dairy (or rather cows, a shed, bucket and a milk churn) were at the bottom end of the Santon Downham road, near the Paddocks.  He delivered twice a day, when the cows were milked I guess, and they had no way of chilling the milk.  We didn’t have our milk from him, we had ours from the Holmwood Dairy just up the road from us.  Bill Root delivered our milk.  The dairy was owned and run by Mr and Mrs Lindsey.  Mum said you had to boil the milk from Tag to kill the bacteria as it wasn’t pasteurised and she didn’t like the taste of boiled milk in her tea or coffee.

Mr. Drury came round with vegetables and he had a horse and cart.  When he had bananas for the first time after the war, my late friend Ivy Brand’s mum rushed out and bought one so that Ivy could taste it.  They had told her about bananas but she had never had one.  They peeled it and her mum, dad and nana gathered round her to watch her eat it.  She took one bite and burst into tears!  She thought it would be juicy like an orange and she never ate a banana again as far as I remember.

We had all the usual things delivered – coal, bread, meat, groceries, wines and beers; you went to the shop with the list or sent someone (always me for nana and mum).  Or if you were one of the few you could telephone, your shopping would be delivered after school by a boy on a heavy trade bike.  Mr Bond from Thetford Road came round in a van with wet fish and shellfish, and you could buy shellfish from Mr. Clarke at the Flowerpot on a Saturday.

Later we had the co-op mobile, also Mr Nurse with fruit and vegetables.  The fish and chip van on Friday, which was Snushalls from Mildenhall.  Health and safety at its best!  Driving around with a couple of pans of boiling beef dripping, but good fish and chips.  Tempers used to flare on a Friday if the chip van was late.  We were sat there with our bread and butter and plates hot waiting for your dinner.  We had the Corona lorry and Bestyett – nana had two bottles of corona, ginger beer and lemonade.  We had Peters ice cream and Bumshi’s.  Mum wouldn’t let me have Bumshi’s, she said it sounded nasty.  My mum was funny.

One of my favourite deliveries was Sappa from Northgate Street in Bury.  They delivered chicken meal and corn, and collected any spare eggs to distribute, but they also delivered day old chicks.  I used to get excited if chicks were coming.  They came in quite small boxes square, but inside the corners were rounded so that the chicks couldn’t get squashed in the corners.  I loved the sound the chicks made in those boxes.  My dad or grandad took them up to one of the sheds, made a little enclosure with a small heat lamp and tipped the chicks out of the boxes.  I loved them they rushed about like little clockwork things, chirping and squeaking continuously.  A lot of noise for such small things.

When I started work, we still could buy things and have them delivered.  Travelling salesmen came to the office on a regular basis, some were our usual suppliers for ironmongery, creosote, oil and petrol.  Also people who sold electrical goods so we could buy a cooker or something a bit cheaper through the company.  I bought my cooker and kettle etc. that way when I got married.  One day a salesman came selling jackets, gabardine things in browns and greens, just right to slip on for running up the yard or biking to work.  They were horrible really but if one of us bought one the others would too.  We all stood outside fitting on the jackets and I remember Geoff Southgate putting one on and he put his hands in the pockets, there was a terrible ripping noise, and we looked at each other.  Geoff pursed his lips and stared at the man.  The salesman said “ Yes they do relax a bit when they are new”.  I cried with laughing.

With all these people to deliver and of course my dad’s adventures into the world of buying from the newspaper, I don’t think we really needed the internet as we got on quite well.  It was cheaper, quicker and much more fun.