Reader Comment on Cobills

Cobills - The Thorpe Avenue Stores

This is a really vivid memory and interesting reader comment on the recent Cobills post.

I remember Thorpe Ave. stores when it was Lawson's in the early 1950's. My mum would send me there on my scooter with a basket tied on the footboard.

A lot of the food items were still sold 'loose'.
On the floor in front of the counter were boxes, sacks of cloth or thick paper and other containers holding such items as fruit, vegetables, sugar and tea.

The wooden tea chests were lined with thin sheets of lead or tin and were quite large. They were very much in demand as storage boxes when moving house.

Loose dry products were dispensed into brown paper bags and meat and dairy produce were first wrapped in greaseproof paper. On hot days mum would give me a container for the butter in case it started to melt on the way home.

In the summer holidays there always seemed to be lots of bikes and scooters laid about the forecourt (as in the photo) and young boys drinking from large Tizer bottles.
For me this is the best photo so far 'Tonbridge '. Many thanks for the happy memories of hot summers climbing trees, making camps and jam sandwich picnics.


The phone Directory shows a G E Lawson at the shop from 1950 to 1960, there was also a G E Lawson, Upholsterer and Antique Dealer, 165 The High Street as far back as 1920 and in Shipbourne Road up to 1982, although I am not sure if they are the same person.
The entries for E W Cobill at the shop start at 1961 and end in 1971.