For many years, with a heavy mortgage, young children, with an extremely limited pension facing us and having to put a considerable percentage of monies aside as provision for retirement, our family's disposable income was often very low. For years my wife worked as a Head Teacher unpaid and later for just a few pounds a week. We have not had a respectable income for the more than 17 years.In order to renew a car or take an occasional holiday it has been necessary to budget, make-do-and-mend and do without many things.
Our mortgage is now paid off. Our savings are in a house in Spain and for the first time in my life, I have no financial worries. [No doubt Gordon Brown-think will require taxation to severely punish me for decades of living carefully. It is annoying. ]
The point of this article however, is to speak about Dalewood Frozen Foods - a small store in Sheffield 9 - one of the very poorest parts of Sheffield, and indeed northern England. It has now been departed for well over six years but when we were struggling financially, it was a real God send.
It was a small frozen food shop which sold high quality, branded goods, typically at a quarter the price of the same in Morrisons which was then located 150 yards away.
The packaging was damaged, other than that - all was perfect. I would often half fill a freezer for a fiver.
What a social triumph to have such an outfit in an area where so many people had so few funds. Indeed! Except that almost all went to Morrisons as a preference to buy perfect packaging and for the dubious delights of having a one stop shop. My financial salvation was never crowded. It eventually closed down due to lack of interest.
If poverty were genuine, there would have been a chain of such shops across the UK.
Can anybody imagine a similar fate for such a shop having occurred in the 1930s?
