I found a shopping list from 1969

[Trouthallgrapefruit]

Interesting isn’t it!

by 1970 when I got married supermarkets were everywhere in my city.

Not a city, but the grocer my mother used in the 1960s was Booths. They are now a supermarket chain in the north. She made a list every week and her order was delivered. Her list for the following week being collected by the driver. Meat and fish were bought separately and also delivered.

We lived in a village and few people had a car, so most people had deliveries or used the various mobile shops that came around during the day.

That was my thought too! Or a family hotel. A relative used to run a small hotel in Scarborough in the 60s & she did all the cooking from scratch herself. She was a fabulous cook.

Teenage me is a bit jealous of you people with early supermarkets! By the time I went off for my gap year, some of the groceries in my medium-sized Black Country town had a couple of self-service aisles, with a very limited selection. They were small & cramped. Bigger stores like the Co-Op had an array of serviced counters: what you'd call a food hall today.

When I came back, 1974, we'd acquired an actual shopping centre!! Just one square, with brick paviours and a planter with benches in the middle. IT HAD A SAINSBURY'S. Oh, the joy and wonder!

We still did a ton of our shopping in the market, though. Now there's a big Sainsbury's three miles out of town, the market went down to once a week then stopped altogether, and I've no idea what's in the town centre any more. Last time I went there was years ago, and it was all pubs. That was quite dispiriting, but I hear most of them have gone now too.

It was definitely a thing in the 70s and 80s. I remember my mum buying it from the pop man who came round the streets in his van.

Cydrax sounds like a Dr Who villain.

I have one of them.

Growing up in Leeds, we didn't have many supermarkets in 1969 - eventually near where I lived we had a Grandways, a Laws Stores and then in the mid-1970s a Safeway opened. There were some Morrisons and Asda supermarkets, and I remember one Tesco store, but the prevalence of these shops was nothing like it is now, where there's a supermarket or one of their local versions on every high street or corner!

Sainsbury's didn't really move North for quite some time. I don't think we had one until the 1980s, by which time I'd already left home.

If she wasn't a housewife I'm not sure who was cleaning the house, washing our clothes, cooking our meals. How was she better placed than most, we were struggling to survive not to mention the trauma of my father's long term illness and untimely death. Eventually she couldn't keep the business going, we lived "over the shop" and lost our home and income. Quite apart from that she never baked when my father was alive and she wasn't working, I don't remember any of my aunts baking daily although one did occasionally and would bring us a cake or apple pie. One of my grans rarely baked but the other did and she was an amazing cook but even she didn't bake every day.

Don't you think it is a bit of a sweeping generalisation to say housewives baked every day? I lived in a rundown inner city area, I went to school with kids who lived in rooms in HMOs, do you think their mothers baked every day? Ever watched Cathy Come Home? Maybe have a look and see how many working class people were living.

The 60s wasn't like some scene from Ladybird books, nice if in your world people had the time, the money and the inclination to bake every day but don't pretend life was like that for everyone.

Better placed than most - most insensitive post of the day perhaps.

Make all the assumptions you like, @Iwasafool. I'm not playing.

This isn’t the shopping list of a housewife in fact, but a woman with a full time job.

Do you mean she was a paid cook for a household or school or B&B or something?

Nothing catering related @Jaichangecentfoisdenom

Also bread shortages which I think was due to strikes but I do remember being behind a woman with 3 loaves of bread in the local co-op, we were rationed to one

Bread strikes 1977. DM went to the supermarket, no loaves so she went to the baking section, picked up flour and yeast (of which there was plenty, she appeared to be the only shopper thinking laterally) and made her own bread. Not entirely successfully, it has to be said.

I think I must have lived in a different world to lots of people on here. I shopped in a supermarket which was much like supermarkets are now. Most supermarkets were smaller but the one I used was new and as big as the Sainsbury's I shop in now. I never shopped anywhere that involved asking the grocer for items

Our town in N Devon had a small supermarket in the early/mid 60s - one of our neighbours worked on the tills. Don't recall DM going to anywhere but there apart from the butchers. I went back to that town earlier this year and there's still a supermarket in the same place as the shop in the 60s.

My mum / grandma did so much more cooking and baking in those days, even up to the 80s I would say. There was much less pre-made foods available so every meal, always with some sort of pudding, was made from scratch. It used far more ingredients but was way more healthy because it was all fresh with no additives or preservatives.
I've been trying to get back to this way of eating/cooking myself (I have the time!). My shopping list is much longer than before but I've actually lost a lot of weight and feel healthier even with the inclusion of sponge puddings.

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who can remember supermarkets in the 60s. The idea that everyone was baking every day and there were no supermarkets is ridiculous. It might have been true for some towns/people but I feel like people are remembering the 40s or 50s (and I do remember the 50s) but 1969? Five years after the Beatles had their first hit, when having a trip to London to visit Carnaby St and look for clothes hoping to look like the young women on Ready Stead Go!

So yes I think I was living in a different Britain to most on here.

Making assumptions? Your rude assumption was "better placed than most." Hard for anyone to top that.

Thanks, I thought it was strikes. The co-op bakery wasn't affected so everyone was queuing there but although they were getting bread they weren't getting enough to make up for all the other shops having none.

You DM obviously was ahead of the game and I'm sure you appreciated it even if it wasn't entirely successful.

My grandparents lived opposite the Grandways in Leeds.

Oh! The one in Chapel Allerton?

Oh yes, I remember the home made bread of ‘77. Dense as anything and probably could have been used as a weapon, and round because the only thing to bake in that was even semi suitable was a Pyrex dish. I think the loaves got a bit better with practice. My mum was generally a very good cook but bread definitely eluded her.

There’s a blast from the past. I lived near Grandways in Meanwood in the 1980s. I think it’s a Waitrose now.

I honestly cannot remember. I just recall getting the bus from city square with my mum and sister and it took about 20 mins. My grandparents relocated there after being moved out of Back Timber Place, off East Street, when the whole area was cleared.

I was 12 in 1969 and I would say there were supermarkets at that time (Just not the large hypermarkets that are about nowadays. I would have gone to the co-op supermarket to get that sort of stuff and they would have asked for my mum's dividend number (an old fashioned version of a loyalty scheme). There was also a Fine Fare supermarket in our town and a gateway supermarket. Anyone else remember Fine Fare and Gateway?

We moved to Leeds in 1971. We went to Safeway in the Arndale Centre in Headingley for a few years and switched to Asda in Adel when that opened. Occasionally we went to Morrison's in Horsforth. M&S food hall in Leeds city centre for treats, especially at Christmas.

In Scotland before we moved, we went to Safeway, which seemed well established across Central Scotland. My granny in a small town went to William Low's, which wad a chain of small supermarkets, but also had groceries delivered from an old-fashioned grocer's.