Greengrocers Stall, High Street

A Memory of Orpington.

This pictures reminds me so much of my childhood. My father had the greengrocers stall which was outside the White Hart pub, partially obscured by the man on the bicycle. As a child I used to help out; I remember washing dirty sooty celery in icy cold water on Sunday mornings so that it could be sold as "clean" and command a higher price, trimming cabbages but shaking the ice out of them first! My grandfather had the stall in the days when Mrs Aplin was the landlady of the pub, he died in 1944 and my grandmother and other family members ran it until my dad was discharged from the Navy at the end of 1945. He ran it until about 1962 when the pub changed hands after Mrs Aplin died. To the left of the pub sign is the fish stall run by another local St Mary Cray family.