Group Photo info – Mildred Jackson & Albert Henry Jackson
ID Number – 028
Image No – img756
Subject – Mildred & Albert in their garden
Date – circa 1970
Donor – FieldPeter
Street – Rodbourne Road
House Number/Name – 160
Location – Rodbourne Road
Group Activity – Family Photo
Mr. Jackson kept the grocers shop next to the Mechanics Reading Rooms in Rodbourne Road. Mr. Jackson had wavy Ginger hair while Mrs. Jackson’s was gray and dinner roll around the back of her head. They had no children of their own but children were very welcome in the shop. Mr. Jackson was a local Baptist preacher and regularly preached at the Tin Chapel on the other side of Bruce Street bridge.
The shop was small. The display window and the counter took up much of the space. Shelves lined the walls behind the counter displaying tinned goods. The back room was used as a stock room and Mr. and Mrs. Jackson lived upstairs. To the right to the door stood the medicine cupboard, locked can’t only opened when a customer needed anything from aspirin to syrup of figs. But Mr. Jackson is best remembered for the Plow Hill tomatoes he sold during the summer at one shilling and sixpence a pound ( seven and a half pence). Tomato grading hadn’t been invented in the 1940 / 50s and he always displayed the mis- shapen ones in his window to the amusement of the children .
If I am correct, children always received a sweet from Mr Jackson when shopping with my Mum.
Alan Clark is right, I got knocked down by a bike, I was sent to Winnings, but crossed the road to Jacksons to get the sweet.. The grazed knee was nothing compared to the telling off I got…Jean Allen nee White