Fetcham In The Forties And Fifties

A Memory of Fetcham.

This parade of shops is in my memory for ever - my family moved to Orchard Close - which starts just beside the post office on the right of the picture - in 1946. My brother was five and I was six months old. We were there for twenty years. Every day, until a supermarket appeared in Leatherhead in the early sixties and we got a fridge, my mother would walk down our road and buy the food for lunch and the evening meal, and she'd cook the evening meal from scratch; always meat or fish and vegetables and a substantial pudding.

These shops held everything: starting from the right of the picture were the post office, the chemist's run by Mr. Coleman, the greengrocer's by Mr Ranger, the grocer's by Mr. Read and the butcher's. Right at the end was a fishmonger's but I cannot recall if it was open every day or just Fridays.

One more recollection - the greengrocer used to have all his vegetables in season, of course, and the selection of apples, all locally grown, was a joy. There were apples on sale there in the fifties which you never see now except at specialist events such as Apple Day. We didn't know what we had!

So pleased to see this photograph. All the memories come flooding back.

Christine Fox