Memories,Memories,Memories

[Guest stevico64]

So many great Memories in all the threads on the pages below. How lives have changed with the demise of all those great little shops and characters, its sad to think that our kids memories will be dominated (outwith ICT) in years to come with the likes of Starbucks and MacDonalds. Thinking of all those great little shops we used to have in Sneckie is a great trip down memory lane. Our City centres and retail parks are the same faceless things throughout the UK. Its great to be able to turn back time, if only for a few moments with some of the memories on these threads.

[Kingsmills]

How sad and how very true !

[Charles Bannerman]

How lives have changed with the demise of all those great little shops and characters,

I'm just wondering how Frankie Jew would have managed in the current climate which has become so anti smoking that the things are going to be concealed below the counter. (I support this by the way.)

For the benefit of those who are either too young or who lived/ were educated on the other side of the Ness, Frank C MacKay (aka Frankie Jew for fairly workable out reasons) was a legendary Hill Street retailer with whom many would have had the following conversation in the 1960s (subsequently decimalised in the 70s)

"Single please, Frank".

"Threepence" (Frank always first stated the price whilst instinctively holding out his hand for the money.)

"And have you got a match?"

"Ha'penny."

On one occasion at a school concert we had a parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas with not a Partidge inm a Pear Tree in sight.. instead it was ".... and A Single out of Frankie Jew's."

[Heilandee]

Having "only" lived up here for 20 years my local memories obviously don't go back as far as you lads,but i am regularly amazed that many of your memories in Inverness are as my memories from Dundee.My father had a newsagents in Dundee and being a canny Hearach,the 3d single with a book of matches for a 1/2d was a great seller along with snuff (regular and menthol) which we weighed into qaurters in wee triangle shaped bags on those big traditional scales with brass weights,kindling sticks chopped "oot the backies" into 6d bundles,Parrafin from a large metal tank which we filled various customers containers for half a crown,folding a thousand newspapers (i can still smell the fresh newsprint if i shut my eyes)before heading out into the snow to do a paperound in the pitch dark and sitting up closies reading the "Shoot" by gas lamps (fecks sake yev got me going noo!!) finding lemonade bottles i could get 6d for was like hitting gold and saving up ciggie coupons,(packs of 10 gave 2 and packs of 20 gave 5) save 100 and cash in for 2 bob.....ahhhhh them were the days "rite enuff" as ya's say up here

[Charles Bannerman]

Your dad gave a whiole BOOK of matches for a ha'penny!? Frankie Jew just gave one match! That would be 4/2d he'd sell a box of 100 for which would only have cost him about 5d in the first place. 900% profit - not bad.

I don't remember getting as much as 6d for a lemonade bottle. 3d for MacKintosh's ones down the Caley Park on a Saturday.

Paraffin out of the tank... yes and from Harry Barclay's van that used to come round the houses.

[Kingsmills]

From memory 6d a bottle was the going rate in Ardersier in the mid to late 6os. My late father spoke about Cinemas in Inverness giving admission to the saturday morning childrens' features in return for empty lemonade bottles. By my time such treats were cash only.

[Heilandee]

We had a superb old Italian lad ran the cafe next door to meh old mans,John the Tally who regularly complained in his heavilly accented voice about the "bladdy foreigners" coming in without a hint of irony.The local kids could scale his back wall ,pinch the lemonade bottles (Corona, i think) he had stored in the yard awaiting collection and get 6/d a go till he cottoned on and chased them miles down the Blackness road,yelling what he'd do to the "leetle busturds" if he caught them.He did brilliant "coke floats" and hot cheese rolls which was the Saturday treat when the paper rounds were finished.

I'll need to let my old man  know of all that potential profit wasted on matches wi the single fags   :015:

edited to say, apparently the books of matches were a penny wi a single fag,still not quite the blatent profiteering of yer Sneckie boy tho