Childhood Years Early 70s

A Memory of Dartford.

I remember going to Dartford with my mum and going to a shop called Kerr's Drapery in the High Street. I was fascinated by the way they gave change to their customers. The shop assistant would put money into a capsule which went into a tube, they pulled a cord and it shot up the tube into the cashier's office at the back of the shop. The cashier put the change in the tube and send it back. I also remember the Wimpy Bar on the corner with tomato shaped ketchup bottles and frankfurters cut round the edges to form a circle and rum Barbara for dessert! The fish and chip restaurant called Birds at the bottom of West Hill with their blue tiles. A Greek lady served with her husband who loved children and they were always smiling. The Coop tills had funny helter skelter chutes at the back where your change would come out and roll around into a bowl. Waiting in a queue outside the Granada Cinema in daylight waiting a see a Disney film and coming out in the dark feeling disorientated. Seeing turkeys hanging up in a butcher's iwindow in Lowfield Street at Christmas time, asking my mother to look at the Ostritches hanging in the window. Going to Fairfield pool when it opened. The stamp shop at the end of Ripley's Market. OK Records and Challenger & Hicks. Phillips in the High Street by our bus stop selling bicycles and toys like scalextrics. Bates motorbikes on West Hill.