Bert Price''s Shop

A Memory of Davenham.

Bert Price's Shop was at the top of our street - Church Street. Bert Prices' shop sold anything and everything. From household buckets and dusters to DIY tools, firewood, fire lighters and paraffin for the heater in our bathroom. It was run - if memory serves me right - by Mr Price and two sons. It was the shop of choice that my dad took me to when I repeatedly mithered him for a penknife -that would be when I was about 8 or 9 years old (1960ish). Being a girl, this could be said to be a strange request. But I was more of a tomboy than a 'girlie' girl - and  David, who lived next door to me, was a Boy Scout and he had a knife. So anything that was good enough for David was good enough for me!

It was a different world back in the early 1960s. Knives were used by children for whittling pieces of wood, cutting bits of string and sawing twigs off trees so that you could make a riding crop for your imaginary horse! But by the late 1960s - when I was a teenager - young people were already carrying knives as weapons, mainly, in my experience, as a threat rather than actual GBH. So what happened to the swinging sixties? What happened to my generation?

It horrifies me now - the thought of children carrying knives. How society has changed in such a short space of time? How different are the lives of so many children?

Children seem to fall into two major catergories - those who have to be very tough to survive walking down their own street, and those who are protected from the world and its dangers and have little freedom. I know that is a wild, sweeping generalisation - but that seems to be the outcome of what we have all contributed to the current society that we live in.

But back to my story. Dad took me down to Bert Price's one Saturday morning and together - with the help of Mr Price, or one of his sons, (I can't remember who) - I became the proud owner of a small penknife. Dad showed me how to open and close the penknife safely and with his warning to "Be careful - it is not a toy," ringing in my ears I spent many a happy hour whittling pieces of wood. He never did take the hint about the imaginary horse though!!

When I was a child, we used to have our own 'Bonfire Night' in the garden. I would make a guy out of my old clothes - stuffed with crumpled pages from the Northwich Guardian - and a few days before the big night , Dad and I would go to Bert Price's to buy some fireworks. Their stock of fireworks would magically appear in the display unit of the counter. Catherine Wheels (dad hated them because they would often fly off the tree trunk that he had attached them to!), small rockets launched from a milk bottle and Dad's favourite, Fountains. As we had dogs at home Dad would always ask, "Do these make a bang? We don't want any bangers".

That's something else that's changed over the years. Fireworks have got bigger and more spectacular, and they all have a built-in BANG! I don't wish to sound like an old 'fuddy duddy' or 'kill joy' but Bonfire Night now starts in October and goes on to December! What's that all about?

One memory of Bert Price's that still, to this day, can make me cringe, happened one summer's evening in 1970. I was 17 and the proud owner of my provisional driving license. Once more my dad is involved in this story, having generously - and some would say courageously - offered to give me driving lessons. I was at the wheel of his Vauxhall Viva, returning from a drive around Bostock. I drove down into the village from Mereheath and with the right indicator on, got ready to turn into Church Street - we sat and waited for the oncoming traffic to clear. "Right - you can go now," instructed Dad. I turned the steering wheel to the right - or so I thought  - and hurriedly released the handbrake, whilst letting out the clutch and pushing my foot on the acclerator.
My knuckles whitened as I grasped the steering wheel in fear, realising that I was heading right  under the open canopy that usually housed the larger items of stock of Bert Price's shop! "Brake!!" shouted Dad as he grabbed for the steering wheel. The car thumped to a halt and stalled. Quickly, pulling on the handbrake, Dad let out a gasp of air. I had neatly "parked" the car right under the canopy and in the relative darkness - my knees began to shake. Fortunately I didn't hit anything - but it would have been an entirely different story if my driving lesson had been in an afternoon! Working on the old adage that "what doesn't kill you only strengthens you", Dad made me reverse out from under the canopy and drive home.

I have one last memory of Bert Price's shop and that is the day that I was helping to clean my mum's 'horse brasses'. I would be about 8 or 9. Mrs Broadhurst - who lived on Mountpleasant Road - used to come and clean at our house. One day, during the summer holidays,  this lovely lady - who was more like a grandmother to me - together with Mum, sent me to Bert Price's to buy some 'elbow grease'. I had never heard of this. I knew about the tubs of soft soap for the kitchen floor, Duraglit and the lavender furniture polish - but not elbow grease. I went into the shop and asked for some 'elbow grease' and my request caused much hillarity.  "Elbow grease", I was informed, was one thing that Bert Price's didn't stock!