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We lived in a terrace house in a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne with shops at the end of the road, a grocers (regarded by my mother as rather-up-market, we shopped at the Co-op about half a mile away where one got ‘divided’ on the amount spent!) other shops included a post-office with a lending library and a sweet counter- I particularly remember queuing for my ration and Harrogate Toffees were available that day. The greengrocer was opposite, Kirkbrides by name, and the butcher next door - Sauresous. Queuing for vegetables was common place, I remember it as a friendly social activity (we grew our ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign potatoes in the strip of garden at the front of the house.) We didn’t get our meat from Souresous but from the Co-op van which came around twice a week.

Further along from the butchers was Black’s the Baker, I can still imagine the smell of bread baking- cakes were a rarity, but my mother was an excellent cook and she made biscuits and cakes, her scones made on a Thursday for the AYPA meeting ( Anglican Young Peoples Association) were memorable.
The last shop on the block was Duffs the newsagents, right beside the station. We were on an electric line from Newcastle to the coast, and the steam trains between Mauois North (just outside Newcastle Central) and Newbiggin came through.
Margaret the fishwife from Cullercoats came around with her barrow once a week.
I don’t ever remember being without food, but I do remember trying to eat a banana with the skin on —this must have been at the end of the war- and also I remember sharing an orange with a friend and my part was the skin!

We were among the lucky ones who received CARE parcels from America, the only thing I recall from them was KLIM which I think was dried milk. We used to make a mixture of dried milk, cocoa and sugar put it into a paper ‘poke’ and dip a wet finger in and suck it.

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