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I used to go shopping with my Mum who was registered with the local Co-operative Store in Kidderminster.

It was a large shop with a big food department. There was a long counter down each side. On the right hand side you had dairy food items like, margarine (no butter), bacon, eggs, cheese and on the left there was tea, sugar, flour, rice and other dry foods and tinned rations.

There was always a long queue of ladies on the dairy side — not because there was necessarily more demand for those items but because of the male shop assistant serving there. He was a typical ‘spiv’. He seemed to be able to produce almost anything from under the counter and there were always masses of parcels wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string waiting for collection. They used to say you could get everything form a fur coat to a brace of pheasants from "you know who".

He drove a little sports car and seemed to have no problems getting petrol when it was like gold for everyone else. He was a smooth talker and had a great a sense of humour chatting to the ladies as they eagerly waited for their turn.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sue Broome of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Kathleen Robinson (Nee Jennings) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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