On the Monday following Jimmy’s departure, I arrived at the shop, (on my bike), not knowing what was going to happen, and certainly not knowing that it was to be a fateful day in my life!
A little Morris car was parked in Market Terrace, at the side of the shop. When I went in, a tall handsome man introduced himself as ‘Stan Clarke’ the new manager. I was very impressed. Throughout that Monday he expounded his ideas for putting the shop back on its feet, of course, I became infected with this enthusiasm. Apparently at his interview in Manchester, with the directors, he had made it plain that he expected them to give him a fairly free hand to do what he thought necessary in order to make Crewe branch prosperous.
It must have horrified their cautious, penny-pinching minds, but they must have realized that a drastic remedy was needed. We spent almost the whole of that Monday throwing out everything old and unsaleable. We were quite ruthless, and we soon amassed an enormous load of rubbish.
Then the order for Thursday’s goods had to be made out. We ordered Danish bacon, and lots of better brands like H.P. sauce, Priory tea, Ticklers and Moorhouses jams, a long list in fact of items that had never been seen before in Hunters Crewe branch!
We were working quite late, and Stan said, “I’II give you a lift home and we can send your bike home to Alsager on the bread van tomorrow, I can pick you up each morning at the top of Shady Grove”. He lived at Porthill with his father, older brother Noel, and younger sister Kathleen. I shall continue to refer to him as ‘Stan’, though It was to be a long time before he was anything but ‘Mr. Clarke’ to me. When talking about him at home, I called him ‘Clarkie’.
Attractive window displays, better variety of goods, plus a handsome young manager, soon had the customers coming in, and the shop became very busy indeed. Stan heard of a small baker in Wolstanton who was prepared to bake at the lowest possible price, and he filled the back of the car every morning with dozens of crusty loaves. There was just room for me to squeeze into the front seat. Bread at that time was four pence halfpenny a loaf, but the first time that Stan brought the bread from Wolstanton, he wrote on the window in large letters, ‘THE 31/2d. LOAF COMES TO CREWE’. Writing on the window was a very popular way of advertising bargains, and most shops did it. A jar of ceiling white and a paintbrush were all that was required, and it easily wiped off.
The bread at that price was just a gimmick to get people talking and bring them into the shop. It did cause a lot of talk, especially among the other traders who could not possibly compete with that price. It lasted several weeks until the baker could no longer keep it up. He had other customers of course and naturally was not prepared to neglect them in favour of a deal that was of little or no benefit to him.
Trade continued to improve and we had an increasing number of orders to deliver, far more than a boy on a bicycle could cope with, so Stan and I used to put them in the car and deliver them when the shop closed. We were often out at Wistaston at eleven-o clock on Friday nights.
We had an errand boy as well, and one I remember was Charlie Brookes, he lived at Barbridge, the other side of Nantwich. He was almost ready to leave school when he came to us, and when he did finish at school; he was ‘promoted’ to the counter. Shortly after this, his father died, and I remember so well him saying, with tears in his eyes, “There’s just me and mam, so I’m the breadwinner now.” He stayed with us for some time until he got a job in Nantwich, not so far for him to travel on his bike of course.
We had help in from other branches, and one young man came to us from Market Drayton. His name was Johnny Madeley. He was a dedicated ‘bringer of good cheer’ a sort of male version of ‘Pollyanna’ It must have been some kind of reaction to the life he had had. Left an orphan, and brought up in a succession of foster homes, and at the time he worked for us, living in digs in Market Drayton, he really had not much to be cheerful about, but from the time he arrived until going home, he smiled, laughed, or whistled! When he was working away from the counter, (perhaps boning bacon in the cellar) he would whistle, not your ordinary ‘man working’ tuneless type of whistle. If you can imagine at least fifty roller canaries all singing as one, you will have some idea of the scope of his whistling.
When Stan first heard him he said, “You’ve got something in your mouth, that’s a not a natural whistle.” Thereupon Johnny insisted on us examining his wide-open mouth in order to verify the fact that he was not using any mechanical aids. At first it was a novelty, but at the end of a long tiring day, when a cup of tea and a cigarette are all you can think about, it is not easy to look kindly on someone who is not only morning fresh, ridiculously cheerful, but is also trilling his heart out! I’ve heard Stan say many times, “I’ll have to tell that bugger to stop whistling.” So then he would start on his other trick. This really was a ‘stand back in amazement’ talent. He could talk backwards! He could reel off whole sentences with every word back to front. This would be infuriating if all you wanted was a straight answer to a straight question.
Johnny came to us for several weeks until we got fixed up with some more permanent staff. I am bound to say we missed him. He called to see us in his R.A.F. uniform, in the early days of the war, and it was with genuine sadness we heard later of his death in action.