Moons Shop

A Memory of Child Okeford.

I was born in 1940 at the shop at the top of Shillingstone Rd, the Corner Stores owned by my father Guy Moon.
One of my first memories is a tank pushing out the corner of the shop wall, and of the G.I's giving us chewing gum, also oranges which at that time we had never seen.
We had lots of evacuees in the village, some of which never went back to their homes and married and live in the village now, a favourite joke played on these city children was, someone would send them to the Co-op for a pint of pigeons milk, they would say they were out of stock, try Mr Diffy at the other village shop, he would say the same thing and say try Mr Moon, Dad would say "It's not in yet, go and ask Farmer Bradly or Watts what time they are milking the pigeons", they would be going round the village for hours on this useless quest, not very PC today but it was not done with any ill intent.
We had one older lady who would come in the shop and ask for jam, after Dad had reeled off about 10 sorts of jam she would say "Have 'ee got marmalade?". She would then ask for fish paste, again after hearing all the sorts of fish paste on offer she would say "I'll have liver and bacon".
Untill the late 1940s we got our water from a pump that served our row of three houses, I can also remember electricty comeing to the village, and until about 1950 there was no sewage system for the village, our WC was at the bottom of the garden.
They may seem like hard times but most people seemed happy with their lot.