The Garden Spade From Salts Of Swad

A Memory of Swadlincote.

When six years old I remember very well going from Church Gresley to Swad (Swadlincote always shortened to Swad by locals) with my beloved grandfather to purchase a spade from the hardware department of Salts. I still have that spade, the blade is a lot smaller now due to years of use by my grandfather and myself and is no longer used, it is polished and on display along with the garden fork purchased from the same store sometime later. The name on the spade is WIGAN BROADACRE, the name on the fork, NASH.

The Christmas toy show at Salts was held upstairs over the hardware department, hours being spent looking at toys with not a hope of having. Salts also had a store on the opposite side and higher up High Street nearer the Delph, this was Ladies and Gents Outfitters and Drapery.

Between the hardware department and The Bulls Head was Wroughtons wallpaper and paint shop. At that time wallpaper had edges that had to be trimmed off, there was a machine in this shop to do it, this saved doing it at home with scissors.

The Bulls Head was pulled down to make way for an "International" store.

High Street is now very different from the picture of 1951. Fond memories.