I worked at Ablitts on Saturday mornings and in the summer holidays in the 60s.    Mollie and Malcolm Mallett owned the business. Jim Smith, the butcher, and Phyl Hardy the cashier worked there too.  Jim always used to call you ‘My Gal.’ Vertically next to photo)

I used to cut up meat and make mince in a big mincing machine, and make sausages. Depending on which sausages we were making, I used to cut up various pieces of pork or beef and add secret ingredients and mix it all up by hand in a big metal bowl. With one hand I then put it in the machine and pushed it through with a wooden plunger, and caught it in the skin with my other hand.  I then plaited up the sausages and hoped 8 sausages weighed 1lb.

I used to deliver meat around the town carrying a big wicker basket, and remember a lovely housebound lady always gave me 6d tip.  I also delivered to Longs Wharf and Yew Trees when it was a hotel.  Mollie delivered meat by van out in the country.

Jim used to put sawdust on the butcher’s block at the end of the day and scrub it with a metal brush. That made a lovely noise and it would look like new again.

I always went home with sawdust on my shoes as the floor was covered in it, but Mum was used to it as Dad was a carpenter, and she’d worked in Ablitts when she left school in 1936.
M.S. b 1949