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Genealogy/memories

When did it stop? When did it start again?

(94 Posts)
MarianNicholson Mon 27-Nov-23 18:04:54

I was thinking that home deliveries of food items (baker's boy, butcher's bike) probably stopped during WWII ? And then they started up again, what, about 2020? Ocado, Deliveroo, etc. The only one that continued throughout was milk deliveries, and that only in some places.
Can anyone help narrow the dates with memories from way back? Or from when they first did Ocado?

Germanshepherdsmum Mon 27-Nov-23 18:13:50

You must young! In the 50s and 60s I can recall the butcher and fishmonger delivering and also the Coop van. Not to order, we didn’t have a phone. They carried goods from which to choose. Also the mobile fish and chip van until that ended after a dreadful accident.

Desdemona Mon 27-Nov-23 18:14:16

When I was a child in the early seventies we had the baker, the milkman, coalman and the pop lorry that came round on a friday afternoon selling lurid coloured limeade, cherryade etc.

M0nica Mon 27-Nov-23 18:54:51

Deliveries started again in the early years of this century. Although a compny called 'Supermarket Direct was delivering Sainsburies products in London in 1995. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket_Direct

sodapop Mon 27-Nov-23 19:20:04

I remember deliveries in the 60s as well. Fish, meat, and my favourite was the baker who came round on Sunday mornings. He called out hot rolls, hot bread, it was delicious but did cause indigestion at times.

Drina01 Mon 27-Nov-23 19:29:17

From when I can remember 1959 and into the 1960s Mum stopped going to the Hadrian grocery store, where a lady would retrieve numerous items from behind the counter one by one and pour sugar into blue bags ! We had a Saturday morning delivery by a lovely boy on a big black bike with a basket on the front. Changed her life ! Well almost, she still cooked a full meal everyday at lunchtime for which we all had to come home and sit down for. How Dad went back to work on a full stomach I’ll never know !

Drina01 Mon 27-Nov-23 19:31:29

Oh and forgot we had a bread man too and a fish van, and the ‘pop’ man. The French Onion Man would also call on his bike …. Though now in later years I question his origins !

Nannarose Mon 27-Nov-23 19:55:43

Greengrocer with a horse and cart stopped delivering in the 60s, but groceries and bakers until the mid 80s

BlueBelle Mon 27-Nov-23 20:01:03

All through fifties and certainly early sixties milk float, baker with basket of breads, butcher boy, and the grocery boy then in the 70s we had a fish van, meat van and corona van come round
We don’t have Ocado in our area still

Oopsadaisy1 Mon 27-Nov-23 20:03:47

We had a chap in a large van filled with groceries that used to come to our houses, we could browse and then buy, that was in the 1970s
We had the baker, fish man, Corona drinks lorry calling to the house and Mum would go to the shops pay for goods from the butcher and small grocers and they would deliver later in the day.that was in the 1950s/60s.

Georgesgran Mon 27-Nov-23 20:06:31

Yes - the Co-op travelling shop came every week and Mum got on at the back to be served.
Walter Willson was another travelling shop in the North East and that was like a mini self service shop inside. The Grey’s Pop Man came on Fridays, and another chap called Teddy sold fruit and vegetables from his van - I can remember big scales with a scoop and weights and he’d just tip the goods into Mum’s big bag. He carried Smiths crisps with the twist of salt in a blue bag. I can’t remember a fish man coming round, but definitely a baker’s van with tea cakes and stotties.

SueDonim Mon 27-Nov-23 20:27:19

I lived in the far north of Scotland in the 80’s and we still had the usual milk deliveries, plus butcher and supermarket deliveries. Often my grocery shop was on my door step by the time I’d walked home from town!

NotSpaghetti Mon 27-Nov-23 20:56:31

In the early 80s we still had a grocery van come to see if we wanted anything. It parked up once a week in the hamlet (or maybe once a fortnight)... it was handy but expensive.

NotSpaghetti Mon 27-Nov-23 20:57:04

I miss the knife and scissor sharpener.

NotSpaghetti Mon 27-Nov-23 20:57:25

Obviously I do my own knives now!

Oldbat1 Mon 27-Nov-23 21:07:41

The more remote Villages here still have a mobile butcher and a fish man, milkman.

JaneJudge Mon 27-Nov-23 21:10:53

Even in the 90s we had butcher deliveries and milk and pop man

NotSpaghetti Mon 27-Nov-23 21:30:11

I suppose some of us would have stopped using- or even noticing these services if we were out at work. Ours tended to come during the day. Obviously the milkman was an exception as he came very early.

Margiknot Mon 27-Nov-23 23:00:25

When I was a young child ( late 50s) there were various delivery vans that came on specific days, ( eg the fish monger on Fridays) or every few weeks - the Tizer ( soft drinks) lorry. These came during the day.some vans brought what ever had been ordered the previous week - others my mother would choose from what was available. Like most families we did not have a car.the milk delivery came early every morning.
When we moved to a small city in the late 60s early 70s,- By then we had a phone and a car. We only had a milk delivery but the milkman could deliver eggs, bread and orange juice ( and cream cake) as well as dairy products.For everything else we used the local shops. I don’t remember when the traditional grocers stores expanded into supermarkets- in the 70s.

Moonwatcher1904 Mon 27-Nov-23 23:49:47

My mum had a little Co-op note book which she wrote her orders in then a boy on a bike would deliver it on a Saturday morning. Then there was the Co-op milkman that would deliver every day. The groceries would be 50's to the 60's. She would collect coloured strips to stick on a sheet for dividend coupons. There was also a pop man that came every week that sold all sorts of pop and stone pots of sarsaprilla. Because we now live in a 2nd floor flat and we are both retired I do my shopping online. We have our groceries delivered by our local Sainsburys and go out on a Tuesday to our local butchers and fruit and veg shop.

rubysong Tue 28-Nov-23 00:21:44

As well as the milkman and the co-op, we also had a fishman, a fruit truck, travelling chemist, breadvan and someone in the summer who came and sold ice cream from the boot of his car. The village I live in now just has a fishman.

GrannyRose15 Tue 28-Nov-23 01:24:09

The grocer who ran our corner shop delivered right up to the mid sixties. I remember his boy on the bike with the large basket in the front delivering our weekly box.

Mamie Tue 28-Nov-23 07:38:12

Also the onion man from Brittany on his bicycle. I would say that was up until the late sixties in our Surrey village.
Our milk lady delivered by horse and cart in the fifties and sixties.
Here in France we still don't have proper internet grocery shopping. You can order online and go and collect it, which helped during Covid except they didn't do any fresh stuff.

grannypiper Tue 28-Nov-23 07:48:07

In the late 80s the NAAAFI used to deliver your shopping, you shopped in store and they delivered. I think Iceland still do this.

M0nica Tue 28-Nov-23 09:21:28

On the day we moved into our current home on 16th December 1996, the fish man knocked on our door. Not fresh fish, but boxes of frozen fish and fish products. Yes, an expensive way to buy fish, but the quality is/was superb.

The service began to peter out about 5 years ago when the business owner was killed in a road accident, the business was sold to another local business, who have gradually run down the delivey service.

In fact, i do not think delivery to the door services have ever really stopped. We had a weekly man in a van from a green grocer 2 villages away, until only a couple of years ago. The milk delivery service continues, but twice a week not daily and a van not a milk float.