Purveyor Of Sweetshops

A Memory of Battersea.

I knew all the best sweet shops on Lavendar Hill Rd. Easily the best was Browns Sweet shop where Stormont Rd met Lavendar Hill. It had every sweet you could think of and seemed to be open 7 days a week until 9pm. I think the owner Brown's wife with another woman took it in turns to run the shifts so they could stay open. He was as regular as clockwork, they never ever closed right during the war, and outbreaks of Flu.
Another favorite was at the bottom of Elspeth Rd which at that time was not cut in half. A man and his wife ran the store from 9 am all day. I went there on Sundays, it was always crowded because they had the sweets I liked, Ogi Pogi eyes, Aniseed Balls, Gobstoppers, Basses Sherbert, Licorice Allsorts, Refreshers, Fry's Chocolate. They also sold Boys comics like The Wizard, Champion. Hotspur and Rover. They sold them second hand, and you could trade your old ones in for new 'old ' copies. I went swimming at the Latchmere Baths in the 3 pence bath which had bugs dropping into the water from the wood ceiling. We used to bomb the bugs by cannonball jumps on them off the diving board. On the way home we stopped at the sweet shop on Elspeth Rd.
Ironically, when they ended rationing all the sweet shops got sold out. There was a famine of sweets, even Browns were short, no Raspberry Raffles! One store even sold chewing gum made out of clay, and all we could get were cough sweets. We suspected they were holding out on us, with stuff 'under the counter' for regular customers.
Problem was, it did not do my teeth any good!

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