Memories of High Wycombe 1960-1975

Cornmarket 1951
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I was also born in the Shrubbery Nursing home in 1957. We lived in Hazlemere. I remember going shopping in High Wycombe with my parents on Saturdays (in the 1960s). We used to go to Aldridges for fruit and vegetables and Brazil's (pronounced Brazzles) for pork pies and black pudding. Both shops were on the high street opposite one another. I remember Murrays department store too. I was always fascinated by the wavy canopy that hung above the front entrance. We went to see Father Chrismas there several times. There was a narrow street - almost opposite Murrays - where we used to get kippers and cod's roe (which we ate on Saturday evening whilst watching 'Doctor Who' and the Daleks on television). I remember eating cockles on a cocktail stick in a little white saucer - and sometimes shrimps - in the cornmarket. As a teenager in the 1970s, I remember buying cheap jewellery from a stall in the Guildhall, records from Percy Prior's (just along from Murrays) and the latest clothes and shoes from a couple of stalls on the Red Lion side of the high street. I remember dark, dingy old Woolworth's too! In my first year at high school we used to go swimming in High Wycombe. It was an outdoor pool (I think) and always freezing cold. A miserable experience. I had a very dull Saturday job in a bakery in the Octagan - I think it was called Parslows. I remember the toy shop too - J.S. Davy's - on the corner of Queen Victoria Road and Easton Street. My grandparents lived in Birmingham and I remember them coming to High Wycombe on the steam train - it was incredibly noisy. I could have only been about three or four at the time. I have lived in France for the past 33 years but I still have fond memories of High Wycombe and visit whenever I can.