Tag Archives: sausages

Margaret Lawry: Shops, High Street, Ablitt’s 1960s

Ablitt's the Butchers, High Street

Ablitt’s the Butchers, 1990s photo from Jane Blake

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

Eileen Smith, Annette Haynes, Pat Burt, Pauline Harwood, Shops: Mills 1930s

On Tuesdays, Yarmouth used to smell of frying onions. It was ‘liver and onions’ day as the pigs had been slaughtered. Mills had a fresh pork carcass twice a week.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Advertisement for Mills  grocers, 1920s, 1930s

Advertisement for Mills grocers,

 

Harry Mills used to make the most wonderful sausages.
I can remember a lorry backing in there and then they would let the pig out.  I can still hear the pigs squealing.  Pat Burt nee Adams, Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

It used to be our treat on Saturdays to buy Mills lovely sausages for Saturday tea. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930

Phil Kelsey: Shops, Mills 1930s

I started work at Mills in 1934, as soon as I left school.
The first job you had, if you went there as a nipper, was as an errand boy. They had a pair of trucks and you went round and collected up the empty beer bottles.  You went round with the empty truck first thing Monday morning to collect up all the empty beer bottles from various people who you knew had bought the beer; that was the first job.  Phil Kelsey b 1920

Advertisement for Mills  grocers, 1920s, 1930s

Advertisement for Mills grocers, 1920s, 1930s