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Not so much a Corner Shop

“It’s all at the Coop now.” The ‘Co-operative Society’ where you could buy just about anything. Take the Chesham - Wycombe and Tring Society for instance. Chesham’s row of Co-op shops started with a Butchers, on to Grocery, on to Haberdashery - which was the largest of them all and contained a men’s outfitters, ladies dress shop and the furnishing department on the top floor. Also forming the last Co-op in the block was the Co-op Bank and Divi Department. Just down the road was the Co-op Chemist and round the rear of these was the Co-op Bakery, providing the bread and cakes for the bread rounds, plus the Dairy Dept plus a garage to repair and maintain the vehicles and an abattoir too!

Anybody and everybody had there own Co-op Dividend number which you gave in when shopping and you collected points redeemable for cash - ‘The Divi’. When you paid for your goods instore the money was put into a small metal container, attached to a wire cable and pinged ( by pulling a handle) across miles of store to the cashier’s box. Or by ‘chute’ down suctioned tunnels to a central cashier, your change was returned the same way.

A little bit like ‘Grace Brothers’ with every store manager and male employee done up in a sober coloured suit.

Why the small edition you might ask?? Well the UK factory was just closing so we had to be very careful how we used the catings as we were in short supply.

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