The Fish Shop

Hello, my parents ran the fish and chip shop in 1939 when I was 5. The photo of the inkpot shows the fish shop, the first building on the left after the inkpot. I went to Python Hill School until we moved in about 1941 to Mansfield when a family called Swallow took over. One of my jobs as a boy was to take a wheelbarrow up to the railway station, wait for the train to stop and pick up the box of fish it would drop off. I could only manage one box, if there were two then my dad would do it. Another task was on a Friday night to take up fish and chips to the cinema staff during the performance. I seem to remember that one of my pals at school was Leslie Lewin. The fish shop garden ran down to the embankment and lots of the children then used to walk through a tunnel alongside which cut right through the embankment near the garden. We served fish and chips of course as well as fresh cooked crabs and lots of “fish bits”. There was a small room for people to eat inside as well. Because of the blackout regulations we had a large wooden entrance built outside the fish shop so that people could queue under cover without the shop lights showing. I remember that next door but one was a barbers.

Just another snippet – to this day I call Clip Boards = Mill Boards“.   As schoolchildren we used to go to the Mills on Rosemary Street and ask for Mill Board which they used in the production of whatever they made.  We then got a bulldog clip and we had a “Mill Board”.   I cannot recall ever being refused mill board by the Mill and there were a lot of these boards in use at my school – Southwell Minster Grammar School.

Tony Lyons (born 1934)