Some people may recall the days of the ‘Order Book’, when you either took your order (in a book) to the Co-op, or it was collected from you in rural areas. The order would be made up for you and either you collected it, or it was delivered to your home. Can this be compared to shopping on line?
Maybe someone would like to have a guess at the date of this order book.
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I used to go to the one on Vale Road for my mam and later for my sister, of course you got divi and people queued down the street on ‘divi day’ in Mansfield to drag there divi. The Co op on Vale Road is being turned into flats now
Hi Peter, You do get around this website! I worked for co-op dairy on Southwell Rd for a few years when I left school. Milk checks were red for sterilised milk, yellow for Jersey milk and pink for pasteurised (blue checks when the price changed). Red top milk was Homogenised (whatever that was) but I don’t remember the Coop selling it. I do remember the nice holly and mistletoe foil on top of the bottles at Christmas. On a windy day you often had to look for the empty bottles and milk checks if they had been out all night as the wind would blow them round the garden, and in a winter sometime the checks were frozen in the bottles which was a devil to get out. Pasteurised milk was 5-1/2p a pint in 1971 and actually went down to 5p for a while ordered by the milk marketing board, and that’s when the pink milk checks changed to blue. I liked the job but didn’t like getting up at 4am on a Sunday morning after being out on a Saturday night so left to get a five day week job in 1973.
Hello “woodus lad”, I can’t recall bread checks as we didn’t have bread delivered but I certrainly remember milk checks my mother used to get them with the weekly shop at the Rosemary Street, Branch of the Co-oP in the 1950s, weren’t they different colours for the various types of milk? ie, Sterilised, Silver Top TT (Tuberculosis Tested), Red Top (I can’t remember what that was), and Gold Top (Jersey). Please correct me if I’m wrong after all it was well over half a centuary ago.
I think the “Order Book ” was around late “50’s /”60’s remember taken the book down to the Co-op shop in Woodus. We used to call the shop “The Stores” and have to carry the shopping home !!!!!! I remember bread and milk checks too. I worked for the Mansfield Co-op for many years in the Grocery Warehouse on Victoria Street, Mansfield and also for the Transport Department. We also had Mobile Shops going round to different areas. I’m sure the Co-op were the first to start the delivery service, just what Tesco’s and the like are doing now. Nothing new I’m afraid happy days long gone, and shopping on line heaven knows what our parents would say, £sd in their days. I’m sure there’s ex Co-op employers out there with more comments. Keep up the good work on this site .
It cannot predate 1967 as that is when Jelly Tots were introduced.
Mid Sixties….1965
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