Mr. Harwood outside Harwoods in the Square 1960s

John and I, we wanted twenty fathom of rope so we went to see Mr Harwood.
In those days you went through the same door as now, and the counter was on the left as you went in and Mr. Harwood was just looking through a gap, with stuff all round him, all hung up, pots and pans and whatever.
The well, that was in the back yard.  It’s inside now so that shows you how small the shop was. So we said, ‘Mr Harwood, can we have some rope?’
He said, ‘Yes, of course you can.  What do you want that for nipper?’
We said, for an anchor rope.  So he says, there’s the coil, take it outside. The pavement is all marked in fathoms, roll out what you like, cut it off and bring the bit back in.
So we said all right.  So we unrolled this coil, and of course he’s not looking out the door or anything, so we thought …. we’ll not stretch it too tight.
We coiled it all back up again and said, ‘There we are Mr Harwood, that reached almost to the public bar in the Bugle.’
He said, ‘ Oh, did it? That’s alright then’.
He said, ‘Give it here’, and we thought he was going to measure it, but he weighed it.
Alec Cokes b 1945