Pots, pans, and paraffin

Two ladies stock up on paraffin in a scene which must have recurred hundreds of times, but on this particular day there happened to be on hand a National Geographic photographer from the US to record it as part of an article on English rural life. A photograph of a mobile shop pulled up in an Oxfordshire village after the Second World War prompted a flood of fond memories on my Facebook page @julieanngodson.

THE CHEERY CLANG of pots and pans and the mysterious smell of paraffin meant only one thing to the country children of Oxfordshire at the end of the war: the arrival of the travelling shop. It is a memory dear to all of those growing up in the post-war years, and yet they couldn't pinpoint quite when it stopped. It's one of those things that just ended without asking our permission, like pick 'n' mix or Saturday morning pictures.

John Catling revealed his personal connection to this beautiful photograph taken on the green at Ascott-under Wychwood in 1947. His memories were so enchanting that I asked him for permission to share them. "My father Dick Catling is on the right in the picture, with the beret. At 38 years old he had just taken over the round as an agent for Fosters, and the older gent was Jack Hemming, the manager for the company based in Studley in the Midlands, who had a dozen similar vans in different areas. He is seen with the gallon-jug pouring paraffin into the customers’ own cans."

"As a lad, I helped my dad by manually pumping the paraffin from the huge storage tank in the barn into the tank on the van," says John. "I remember it as Aladdin pink paraffin – the pink being added as a powder to the main storage tank in one of the barns. It had a slightly scented smell. 

"During school holidays, I sometimes accompanied my dad on his rounds, travelling out as far as Aldsworth and the Barringtons, and of course all round the Wychwoods, Charlbury and Leafield. One of my duties was to watch the customers wandering round the van to make sure there were no light fingers helping themselves! I remember that the curtains on each side of the van were later changed to sliding plywood doors.

"At the time, the business  was based at The Walnuts at Upper Milton, where we lived a very primitive life, with the vaulted earth toilet being quite a way up the garden. We were eventually given an Elsan toilet which saved the perilous journey outside, but the smell of the dark Elsan fluid could be smelt all over the house. Such strong memories!" 

Another resident recalled: "I remember the pots clanging and the smell of paraffin. On Sunday afternoons John Hemming captained Milton eleven cricket team and later managed the football team."

The boy on the left is Fred Russell. The younger lady and her husband rented rooms at the blacksmith’s house. She was Jean Harris, so the blond-haired boy next to her is perhaps her son Steve. They lived in Upper End, Shipton. The older lady, Mrs Edgington, lived in a cottage with a small-holding just off the green at Ascott.

After Dick Catling's early death in 1960, Jack Hemming’s son, John, took over the business. His brother-in-law, Basil Pratley, succeeded him in 1962, and also operated a hardware store in the High Street in Milton. Soon cars would become a common site parked outside family homes, and even women learned to drive them. Grocery deliveries lingered into the sixties, but the mighty supermarkets soon loomed into view and the travelling shops faded away.

Julie Ann Godson's Oxfordshire history books are available on Amazon.