Interviewee: The kitchen shop use to be Road’s the dentist, one of the Road’s family who own lots of property here, Darnleys, was called The Old Forge, but it has always been a tearoom. What is now Haslemere Bookshop used to be a hairdressers, then it became a toyshop in the 70’s, run by someone called Dudgen, and then it became the bookshop. Pizza Express used to be Boots, which has now moved to where Green’s Garage [was]. Boots complete with a lending library, borrow a book for tuppence a week. Denny Stone used to have a gentlemen’s outfitter on the corner where the Argus/Argos shop is now, where Mann & Co. that used to be an opticians, but then it became a jewellers and now its, obviously, an estate agents. Carry on up the High Street what was Marley Flowers used to be Burgeois Stores, [they] had a grocers on the bottom, they used to have a restaurant upstairs and they used to have their own bakery which used to go along where there’s an estate agent’s now. Burgeois Stores used to own the whole lot they used to have the locksmiths shop that used to be a bakery department, patisseries and all that stuff, then the bakery used to be next door which wasn’t an actual shop in those days. When Burgeois closed down it was redeveloped, I think it started life as a building society, probably Eastbourne Building Society. Next door to us, when I was a kid, used to be Burston’s, the off licence and when I was a kid, on the other side, it used to be a gentlemen’s outfitters called Bolshiers, run by Mr and Mrs Yow. Not much has changed beyond that, it’s just been the bank, the pub and the club. Where the pet shop is that used to be International Stores, Johns the butcher on the corner, complete with slaughter house behind.
Interviewer: Was there still a slaughter house there when you were young?
Interviewee: Yes, I remember sitting in the bath one night, as lived there till I was 16, and [I asked] ’Mummy, I can hear cows mooing. I didn’t know there were cows near here.’ ’They’re in the slaughter house Joseph.’ [It was] where the old buildings are round the back of what used to be Blackdown press, the slaughterhouse used to be there. It was run by a family called Johns. Round the corner used to be the Gas show room, where Cockerills are now, where Anna Mavery is used to be Gammon Brothers, which used to be haberdashery, clothing and that sort of stuff.