Chapel Street General Store

A Memory of Dawley.

My parents (Ken & Gwen Gardner) bought a small general store on Chapel St, when I was aged 5 in 1969. My memories are lovely and will always be with me. Our next door neighbour was Mr Jim Curtis, always remember him, a lovely man who had a Monkey Puzzle tree in his garden and used to give me rhubarb over the fence from his garden. My best friend was an old lady who lived over the road named Mrs Gittins, I spent many a lovely hour with her making jam tarts and cakes in her lovely kitchen which always smelt of home baking. We used to have these with afternoon tea in the sitting room or on a nice day out on the lawn of her beautiful garden. On one of these occasions I got stung by a bee on the bum as I sat on the grass. I still have a Birthday card that she gave me for my 7th Birthday. I loved that lady so much and was very saddened to hear of her passing, years later. I attended Dawley Junior School and had an aunt and uncle that lived at the bottom of Pool Hill Road by the name of Mr & Mrs Daniels who we visited on a weekly basis and remember that walk back up the hill seeming to take forever for my little legs. We had a German Shepherd named Tina who while we were there gave birth to 8 puppies. I used to collect all 8 of them and lay them all in a row in my doll's pram and take them for a walk round Dawley Park where I spent many a happy hour around the swimming pool in the summer. Once a week I used to go to Wellington to the Cash and Carry for stock with my dad, and on weekends I used to be allowed to serve on the sweet counter of our shop, standing on a stool so that I was taller. Unfortunately due to the growing supermarkets that were being built at that time, my parents business slowly deteriorated, and at the age of 8 my parents had to sell off what they could of our shop and we were forced to move out and moved to Birmingham. My parents found jobs and bought another house and life was good.
I went on to marry and moved to Kent and have 2 lovely sons; Christopher and Lewis and am now a grandma myself to my wonderful 2 year old grandson, Toby. I will never forget Dawley as it is a part of what made me the person who I am today.