In the 1950s, local shops in Sudbury and the nearby area provided almost everything you needed in terms of basic items. However, the area did not originally cater for a changing population. The butcher, chemist, newsagent etc. were all in close proximity, and you knew every shopkeeper. For something more, then Wembley – the area’s shopping hub – was close by, and department stores like Marks and Spencer, Killip’s or C&As stand out in people’s memories. Since the 1950s, both shops and shopping habits have changed quite remarkably and a wider range of products have become available to serve new communities who became established in the areas. Nowadays, this is seen in Harrow Road and beyond, where foreign food and Asian textiles, for example, are widely available.
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Well, it was more local atmosphere, it wasn’t so foreign and now the shops are all owned by people that came to England recently, then it was the local one people. But then there was the big C&As, Marks and Spencer, big shops and people used to come shopping (…) to Wembley.
Esther
(In Sudbury) there were one if not two greengrocers available, there were probably two grocers as well, there was a shoe shop which did repairs, shoe repairs, there was a bakery. Moving up, there was a toy shop as we called it, which sold lots of exciting things for children. Next door to that was an electrical shop, so you could buy lightbulbs and plugs, that sort of thing. Then on the other side of the road, again, we had home and colonial groceries, and the Express Dairy had a shop there as well, where you could buy bread also. Again, further up the butchers, and then the chemists, and then a tyre place for cars on the very end. So, we were very well catered for we didn’t need to stray beyond this parade of shops which is known as ‘Court Parade’, and I saw one or two signs that show that it is still ‘Court Parade’.
Francis
When we came to live in Brockley Road, I used to shop at Court Parade. There was a lovely shop there called ‘Walton, Hassell & Port’ and it was like a high-class grocery, so I used to do my shopping there, and as well as that, we had a lovely bakery on the other side of the road, and a greengrocers. The bakery was ‘Hugill’s’.
Johanna
The butchers in Sudbury, Frank Putman… They were still slaughtering their own cattle. I can remember seeing the cows going through and hearing a lot of ‘mooing’.
Patricia
There used to be a butchers here next to The Swan, and they used to have an abattoir so they used to slaughter, and they had two big wooden doors. His son went to Sudbury School, one of my friends is still in contact with him. He lives in Hampshire now, but his father was Putman, Putman, the butchers, and if you came up Rugby Avenue, it was the first. It was directly opposite next to The Swan so you would always see that. I remember these two great big wooden doors. They went to the back of the shop. I can’t ever remember being in there and also, I think there might have been a shop next door which sold bric-a-brac. I remember that in the early ‘70s, looking there at some piece, some object that they would want a lot of money for and you’d think, “Is it really worth that?”.
David
As I was working – and I was working up in town – there were shops there, so I wouldn’t necessarily shop every day in Sudbury but, as I said, we knew the shopkeepers, they knew us. It was very personal.
Viv
I can remember going with my parents, I remember coming up to Sudbury one time, there was a supermarket which was on the north… the west side of the road. It’s gone now, I think it might be a solicitors or something, and there was a supermarket there. I remember coming up there with my mother and it was sort of interesting because I think it is the first time I’d seen they had these sort of big refrigerators where they kept stuff.
David
There never used to be the number of places selling foods like there are now. These places that sell chicken and piri piri chicken. There was none of that. No pizza parlours. The cafe over the road, I think it’s called ‘The Sudbury Cafe’ now, that was called ‘The Mulberry’ years ago, that’s always been there. Going back, there’s a supermarket on the corner opposite the car sales place, and that’s changed hands quite a few times. I think it might been ‘Budgens’ at one time, but I can’t really remember a lot about the other shops.
David
There was one (sweet store) opposite Butler’s Green which we used to walk past on the way home from Sudbury. One of the things there that I remember – it’s not there now, I think it might be travel agent now, but I remember going in there and then they started selling air-fix models, like air-planes and stuff and I remember that, ‘Oh! This is great’, you know. I might have acquired one or two from there, but it’s not… my parents didn’t really spend… They didn’t splash out on things that were… that they would see as unnecessary.
David
There was a toy shop down near the railway, passed the place which is a Banqueting Suite now, and there was a bicycle shop there as well for years. I can’t remember the name of them, but the bicycle shop was still there in the ‘90s. It was quite small. I never bought any bikes from there. What else? One time there was a guy selling radio-controlled model aircraft etc. Very expensive, but some of them were quite big and people used to fly them at Northwick Park, because I remember they’d be flying over your head when you were playing football, which was a bit dangerous!
David
And this place is absolutely classic example of a first generation garage. If you would go to the British Motor Museum, which is at an obscure little place called Gaydon, which what I can say is vaguely between Banbury and Stratford-on-Avon, they have reconstructed a garage which is almost identical to this, brought from somewhere in West Wales, piece by piece. Single storey, with this… will just like that, stretching back, all sort of DUB C equipment in it, none knows what it did, but you can see here that they, long before town planning regulations came in, they actually put the petrol pumps here actually on the public highway – nobody seemed to object, but I never remember those pumps being used, and two other garages set up in Sudbury. There was one… one was pretty well where Tesco is now, which was a much bigger one, most of their business was selling petrol, they didn’t they did have a very small repair area but I think this one which… one time I think it used to be called FTP Motors, I’m not sure about that, but there was also a third one which has only just been demolished, which I think it’s a great shame, really, about where The Mitre pub was – I’ve done it again, haven’t I? The Mitre pub which was on Watford Road, pretty well I would say opposite Perrin Road, and near, very near there, there was another garage constructed which was rather nice because they had a wonderful art-deco tower above the garage building which really dated it but it made the old one that we are talking about now, VC Motors, look by comparison very old fashioned.
Robert
I remember there’s a used car lot over the road, it’s still there. Opposite The Swan. Well it was… it used to be called U.C. Slim. It was a U and a C and S-L-I-M, and he had another one over this side. Two places, and somebody told me the U.C. Slim stood for, you see, Slim because it meant that he was in the pub, it was him over there. I don’t know whether that was true.
David
I didn’t really go with my parents shopping for food that often. My memory was to come up to this supermarket here, back in probably the ’60s, and look round, but I didn’t really… I mean, I think when you are a young boy, you sort of think “Well, it’s boring. I don’t want to go shopping. Why do I want to go shopping for food for? There’s nothing in it for me”. I do remember one thing that we used to collect and it was like… they used to sell tea and they used to have an album of cards. They used to collect the cards for the album and they do different subjects like transport, dinosaurs – that was quite a good one – animals. All sorts of things. I’ve still get some of the books now. There was one on aircraft in the world and they were brands that I don’t think even exist now because it was Typhoo, there was PG Tips and they used to do their own ones, and if you bought a box of tea bags or whatever, you’d get one of these little cards as a bonus. I used to like that, but the rest of the stuff I really wasn’t interested in apart from cereals, they used to give away toys in them sometimes. I remember there was some small cars, little plastic cars but they were very fragile. If you tried to move them about they’d break, but I remember looking at it and they were sports cars. I think they were British sports cars, so things like that, or sometimes you’d get a soldier, so those were sort of highlights, you know, and the rest of the stuff we weren’t interested in.
David
Clothing… That time there was not much clothes, garment shops on Ealing Road. Now (there are) many garments, different kinds (…), what kind you need a garment, Indian or English, whatever you need you can buy from Ealing Road. That time was no garment shops, no sari shops at all, so when we need to buy sari, we have to get it from India, when we go to India, otherwise you can’t get it from here. Now you can get sari or Indian dresses on Ealing Road.
Ramila
We couldn’t get much of Indian stuff, the supermarket didn’t keep (them). The only place in Southall*… there was one place that used to get dahl (…), carrot, cabbage, cauliflower… but now all the vegetables are available, and then… there was another shop in Aldgate, it used to be quite a big one, had a lot of Indian stuff, so we used to go there, once in a while. (…) I used to go with my uncle and my husband, and fill up the car.
Sushil
*Often called ‘Little Punjabi’ or ‘Little India’, West London’s Southall distrit has been a South Asian hub since the 1950s, and was featured in the 2002 film ‘Bend it Like Beckam’. Southall Market on High Street sells produce, spices, jewellery, and antiques while eateries along The Broadway offer samosas, dosas, and sweets like jelabis. Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha is one of the largest Sikh temples outside India. (Source: Wikipedia)
Yes, the first Indian shop that opened in Wembley… well, two that I remember, the very first was rather a poor little thing down in the parade of shops, down from St John’s road. The name on the face was ‘Shake and Shake’, and… I think I only went there once but the smell of spices as you went in the place was overpowering. (It was) a sort of grocery and general Indian shop and in fact it was in the very early days of the Indian community and I had no reason to go in there. I think I once went there with my father I think more or less out of curiosity, found some reason to go in. The second one was in Ealing Road, (…) it was called ‘The Universal Emporium’. That was the first, I’m pretty sure, Indian trader in Ealing road, they did their own trade.
Robert
That time there wasn’t much of Indian grocery shops. Only once a week there was one on Ealing Road, vegetables shop, so we buy vegetables once a week from a vegetables Indian grocery, then other we buy from, all vegetables from Sainsbury’s like cauliflower, other English vegetables, not Indian grocery. There was one shop, then all Indian grocery you buy from Indian shops. Meat, green chillies, coriander and ladyfingers, aubergines… all we used to buy from Indian shops. Now, not that time, now they do but not that time.
Ramila
When I first came here there wasn’t anything (from my own country). Over the years we asked for things and it’s OK now, we get all that we could have from home, so that side is OK. You learn… well, I learnt to adapt. I am somebody who can adapt to things so I learnt to adapt and get over it.
Norma
In the markets like in Harlesden they’ve got places like big storage area, you could go and buy food from other countries like my country, and other countries.
Cislyn
(In 1968/1970) We had to travel a bit (to get the spices we needed). We had to travel to Golders Green. We had to travel another part of Finchley. There was only one store that sold our stuff, like the dahls and the spices and ginger and garlic. And, yeah, we used to travel to buy that, we used to buy a stock, bring it home.
Rajni
The milkman was a great part of the community really, and the elderly people in those days used to get potatoes and eggs and bread and other things from him. And the postman, of course. He used to take note of unexpected curtains not drawn, or milk not taken in, that sort of thing.
Kathleen
Lot of things were delivered, most of the local shops would deliver for you. We had a regular baker in the early days, who would come with his basket, big basket, filled with all of sorts of different kinds of bread and cakes, and you could choose what you would have, and he came every day. The milkman came every day. There was a mineral water man, who would come selling… it’s called the direct mineral water supply, the DMWS, and as children we thought this was wonderful, this fizzy lemonade, really, and my mother used to have little glasses, we were allowed a small glass each, because it was quite expensive, I think it was 4 pence per bottle, and that was big money then, and there was also the butcher. When we had the telephone – that was an excitement when the telephone came in – you could telephone the butcher and he would send you meat around with a boy in a bicycle.
M
I used to shop in Wembley, as I said, because it had some lovely shops in Wembley, lovely little boutiques shops. We had a lovely Marks & Spencer, we had the British Home Stores, we had the C&As…
Viv
When we first moved here, I must admit used to walk through Wembley High Street quite a lot, and get my shopping sort of locally. There was a shop called ‘Good Goods’ – I don’t know if you remember that. You had to go down deep into the basement, and they had all sorts of crockery and china and you know, and… I used to love ‘Blands’, which of course has gone, because you could get everything there, couldn’t you? So yes, if I had to go further afield, I’d say Brent Cross, but I do love markets and things, because having lived in Notting Hill, we had Portobello Market on our doorstep.
Eva
But Sudbury, I mean, was very, very decent, there was… and the shopping centre, C&As, Marks & Spencer and… There was not many food shops so… you know, the present commercial food around Sudbury, it was not there, you know. It was really… I can just remember there were about three Indian shops.
Florence
(I used to go shopping) in Wembley, not Sudbury. We didn’t go to Sudbury so much. Why, I don’t know. Wembley was quite a nice shopping area, really, it was… Lance shop (was) there, you see, you’d go and have a meal in Lance. Lance was a big well-known name. John Lyons, food store, café and all the rest of it, and (I) used to go there and have a meal. And the fisheries, and all the old fashioned stores. And of course, I don’t know whether you know Henry Cooper, the boxer, used to have a shop at the top of Ealing Road, a greengrocer shop but… I don’t think that I have actually met him.
Patricia M
Killips, on the… where the middle bank was, the furniture department, on the opposite corner, you know, where the road goes, Lancelot (Road), they used to have another store, which was more of a general store, women store, and materials, and clothes, and shoes, and that was on the opposite corner, the two shops, that was a well-known shop, Killips, well, well-known shop. I used to buy a lot of things in Killips, good quality shop that was, good quality shop, but all closed and has gone, long years ago.
Patricia M
Yes, that was a record shop in Wembley. There weren’t any record shops in Sudbury at all. You had to go to Harrow or Wembley to buy my records.
David
Going back to vinyl days, there were two music shops in Wembley. There was one… Oh dear, I’ve got it… It will sound absolutely awful now I’ll say one was by the National Provincial Bank but that doesn’t help very much, does it? Ehm… if you imagine yourself where the old Post Office was… this is getting worse! Ehm, at the corner of Park Lane, on the North side of the High Road, a sort of few shops going west of the corner of Park Lane, there was a music shop there, I mean, not only sold records, but sheet music and musical instruments, and there was another similar shop in Ealing Road… and again I’m going to be absolutely useless and say it was about by Brendford Timberyard but that doesn’t help! As you went down Ealing Road, it was on the left hand side before you got the Union Road and they were the two main sources of recording music and anything musical but virtually certainly there was never anything of that sort in the Sudbury shops.
Robert
Barbers. I remember we used to have to go up Wembley. There was one here. I had my hair cut the other day in Sudbury, there’s a couple of barbers there now but at that time, there wasn’t anything up Sudbury so we went up to Wembley High Road. That’s where there’s a place to get your hair cut. Ealing Road, there was one there that I used to go to in the ‘70s.
David
courtesy of Brent Museum and Archives)
