The Way it Used to Be: Shopping from Homo...

Today you can buy almost anything online. Funnily enough we came close to the idea of purchasing goods without moving from home ages ago, when vendors and other service merchants came to your door to offer their wares. A sole 'similarity' amongst many changes that have taken place since then.

It's strange to remember that in the fifties and sixties we had a maid at home,all day, right through the week — full time that is! Couldn't afford that today, no way. She did the washing, scrubbed the floors and generally did the cleaning around the house, but never cooked. 'Rosa' would be paid about two shillings and sixpence a week, if I recall correctly, plus maybe a packet of sugar or some other item. I don't know whether that was the going rate or not, but surely you would've got much more than that, had you been in official employment doing a simi lar job, even in those days.

So there,is a case of'employment abuse' right on my doorstep! And it's to that doorstep that many came to 'service the community'.

If you think about it, you didn't have to move from home to do much of your shopping if you didn't want to,just like you can do today on your electronic typing thing!

You would get'El Ditero'knock ing on your door, offering all man ner of clothing which he carried stuffed in two big baskets; what ever you bought needed a dammed good ironing of course. He would return the following week and pro duce this fat leather bound book, which contained details of your'on tick' purchases. You would then pay him three shillings or whatever, and off he went to collect from the next victim what was due to him.

That was the trend also with bread vendors, fish vendors and fruit and vegetable vendors.

We also had 'El Lechero', the milkman, who came round with his milk urn, selling it by the pint.

For those who were sweet toothed, the cake man was in the area most days, with his two bas kets full of your favourite 'japonesas' or 'mil ojas' for you to enjoy.

Salvador was a popular charac ter with his 'Pari,' and he would shout out to let you know he was around. 'Pari' was a triangular shaped type of wafer, buttered with a choice of two or three spreads.One wasa coconutty kind and coconut balls on a stick.

Supermarkets were way ahead somewhere in the future you see, and 1 guess these service providers complemented the so called corner shop, like 'Pisani' down the road from where 1 lived, who also of fered a free delivery service to their regular clientele.

Sugar comes to mind again, be cause in those days it was sold 'loose' so to speak, by the pound, wrapped in brown paper, and but ter was cut off a slab and weighed to your needs. However, you, would have to provide the shop assistant or el hombrc de la lienda with a bottle or container of some sort to fill with oil, which he would pour out of a barrel.

So you see how even then, what a comfy life we had! At least we thought so.

There was one particular trades man, whose successor I was sur prised to see still doing the rounds, while on holiday last summer.'El Afilador', is the guy that sharpens knives and scissors and things. He still goes around blowing his pan pipe, but has upgraded his mode of transport from the barrow-type 'largewheelonastrapthing', pow ered by strong leg muscles and a pedal, his former self used to push around,to the motorscooter he was whizzing around on when 1 saw him up the coast.

There was a number of other senores offering their goods up and down our streets too,like'Paloma' with his Calentita, which is still sold today. 'El Aguador,' a tall lanky man, sold water in small wooden kegs, carting them around in a wheel barrow.

You could also buy water from street distribution points for a penny a bucket. 1 remember strug gling with heavy zinc buckets full of water, which 1 would carry quite a distance and then empty into our 'Tinaja,' a large clay receptacle which kept the water cool and fresh.

The mind boggles as to how we managed to make ends meet on such poor wages, especially with large families — it wasn't uncom mon for them to number eight or nine each.

My father earned about twenty pounds a month working in the Post Office,and 1 made two pounds and eight old pennies a week,slog ging away — I think not — in the Dockyard, where 1 worked for a while.

1 remember my mother having to go to see the... let me whisper this now... quietly... the "money lender" once or twice, when we were a bit strapped for cash, or she needed a substantial amount extra, which could be something like as little as, by today's standards, fif teen or twenty pounds.

Today we don't have any qualms about telling someone we've taken out a loan, but then, it wasn't nice for people to know you were in debt. In fact that was what it invari ably turned out to be — debt.

I have vague recollections of my mother running into a little diffi culty meeting payment dates, not least because of the 25% interest slapped on top of what was owed, by the'shark' money lenders.

But in those days, that was the only large sum of money,that was probably owed you see. There was no car, so there was no car loan, no telephone bills — no telephone. Holidays? Yes, in your dreams! Nights out in restaurants, fees for sports and leisure activities, assist ing children with their university expenses etc,etc,etc,etc? Not a chance! Oh yes, 1 almost forgot, there was another outlay — two and sixpence a week for poor old Rosa, the cleaning lady!

In fact there was the odd time things becamejust a little awkward, when a few shillings or a couple of pounds were needed,for example, to buy me a scout uniform. I was the younger of two brothers, and

Iwould normally get the 'hand me downs', but on this occasion fi nance was necessary to fit me out as one of Baden Powell's follow ers. Anyway I can't imagine what the movement would have been like without me in its ranks, so the pennies had to be found!

Big items of expenditure just didn't crop up I suppose,like I said, to own a car wasn't on the agenda in those days.There were probably a couple of hundred people who actually owned a private car on the Rock. On my street, there were maybe throe or four parked on it, and that included the corner shop's delivery van.

Mortgages? Who, was tied up to one of those? I'm sitting here, try ing to think! 1 don't think there was one single person who could even spell the word, let alone be paying for one.

And that was our lot, 1 declare. What you didn't know about, you didn't care about, so then you didn't miss, and life ran smoothly without a hitch.

At least, that's how it seemed to me... after all, they do say don't they... "Ignorance is Bliss'.