'Front bacon' sounds like some kind of filthy euphamism!

We had Fine Fare down here in the south east of England too (though you'd have to go back to the 70's). And Mac Fisheries. And Bejams (remember them!). 100 hoof and ear burgers for a £1 anyone?

Margo, it's like the Bible and its chapters of "begats", only with food stores/grocers/supermarkets.

You'll have to forgive us our trips down memory lane. I remember when it were all fields round here.... jumpers for goalposts...

I have just come out of a meeting with about 20 police officers - and they all looked very young.

Never mind Fine Fare - what about Rumbelows.

Mac Fisheries was a chain of - once - fish shops that turned by the early 70s into average small supermarkets with a bit of fish. Set up by Lord Leverhulme as part of his programme to revitalise the Scottish fishing industry in the 1930s (think of Leverburgh), then absent-mindedly run by Unilever

The stores were sold to International Stores in the early 70s: the brand I think still belongs to whoever now owns Youngs.

Between the early and late 80s, International, KeyMarkets and Fine Fare were sold to the Dee Corporation, which at the time owned Gateway and a clutch of stores trading as Carrefour. They briefly rebadged everything Gateway, started to fall apart, sold most of the big stores to Asda (now Wal-Mart) and the smaller ones are now Somerfields.

Rumbelows grew up by acquiring all kinds of local electrical chains in the 60s and 70s - including the one in Liverpool which sold my mother my pram, gave me my first job, discovered an obscure rock group and briefly managed pretty much the most successful pop music stable ever - under the aegis of a charismatic entrepreneur called Jules Thorn who made a rather ramshackle chain work. Thorn's business merged with EMI, so the electrical chain got lost, drifted, became unprofitable and eventually snapped Thorn-EMI's patience. They sold the stores in 1995 to a German PC business called Escom who lasted all of a year before collapsing under the sheer poisonness of the chalice they'd bought.

Blimey Flanneur - most chaps just collect stamps or train numbers. That's some hobby you've got.

More autobiography than hobby.

It's not when the policemen look young that you have to start worrying. It's not even when they start calling you "Sir" (and not sarcastically). It's when you expect them to call you "Sir", that's when you should start worrying.

Now, what did I come in here for?

I don't mind the constables being young, I can cope with the sergeants being young, even the inspectors. It's when you meet the superintendents and they look like they should be doing their homework that you realise that it's starting to be a problem.

That and the fact that the leader of the Conservative Party is younger than me is a bit of a worry too.

You really need to worry when the judges look young.

Whilst I appreciate that we may have lost our transatlantic cousins, I personally, think this thread is becoming a bit of a classic.

Flanner, you are, of course quite right about Fine Fare and Tescos. And somewhere in this equation there was Mace (known in this neck of the woods, as Aberness) who also sold out to Somerfields. I know one of the Aberness directors who is a Somerfield director, now.

Do you remember the typhoid outbreak?

My understanding is that the Willie Low typhoid thing was in the mid 60s, when my retail career was more concerned with:
- making sure we had sufficient stock of what was in the charts, and
- making sure the right records (ie those performed by bands our owners managed) got into the charts, which wasn't always quite the same thing
- achieving the above AND getting the weekend's Greek prose in on Monday morning.

By the time I got involved with the Scottish food industry, Typhoid Wullie was just something that cropped up in focus groups. But it did lead to Low's disappearance in Aberdeen, which in turn led to the city's pioneering of edge of town grocery superstores at Dyce and Bridge of Dee (rare indeed in the early 70s in Britain: we used to go to France to stare at them), and it created a bizarre obsession with corned beef knives among traders.

Even my fascination with the minutiae of the grocery trade gets thrown when it comes to Mace franchises. As I understand it, Aberness was the Scottish Mace franchisee in the early years of this decade, and was bought by Somerfields though the franchise hasn't changed hands elsewhere. I thought they'd now sold most Mace assets to McLane's (formerly a division of Wal Mart) and were putting their small-store energy into other brands.

fnarf999,

Too funny - I earlier responded to a post similar to this on another travel website.

Quote" If you're in America, you probably won't be able to find British cuts of bacon unless you live near a specialty butcher"

Not true, I live in Massachusetts and my local store stocks 'Irish' bacon which is same as the bacon you can buy in the UK.

Fine Fare? - Oh my goodness when I was a 'little one' we used to shop there every Friday. Then we moved and shopped at Morrisons - when we moved to Middlesex we shopped at Sainsbury's. I really have no brand loyalty anymore.

Margo - stick with the cucumber sandwiches, we don't really eat them (they are more likely to be served to tourists at the Ritz than the Queen Vic) but it's better than marmite sandwiches :-D

David - put your trousers on over your pants and stop freaking out the American's who don't understand you! BTW I used the word "wellies' in conversation yesterday - can you imagine how that went down??? :-D

it created a bizarre obsession with corned beef knives among traders.>>>>>

Now here's something that can't allowed to slip past. What on God's good Earth is a corned beef knife, and why the sudden demand? (and this is where the colonials really will get lost as they won't know what corned beef is - they think it's salt beef. The fools. They also think the Irish eat it. The poltroons).


>>>>David - put your trousers on over your pants and stop freaking out the American's who don't understand you!>>>>

I have been known to post on here in my pants.

Oh alya, NOTHING is better than Marmite sandwiches.

Victor Value, anyone?

Why did Dunnes go out of business? Surely there are more old blokes around now than ever before.

In fact I'd quite like a Dunnes near me - I am getting old.

What was "old" in the 1960s is not suitable for people from the 1960s who are now of a certain age. Dunn-style (I think Dunne's were or are a different sort of shop) tweeds, cords, flat hats and brown checks are the stuff of temporary fashion for those who value retro-chic. I wouldn't be seen dead in it (not even when I get my bus pass next year): and I am NEVER going to wear a little trilby hat when I drive, either - I'll leave that to the Pete Dochertys of this world, who will probably never get to understand how ridiculous they look.

Mind you, I was Man from Mr Byrite in my time, so what do I know.

PatrickLondon,

As a Yorkshire girl I LOVE marmite so do all of my 3 children - DH (born in Kent) hates it.

Marmite is still a dodgy item to take to a Brunch - I'd take saugsage rolls or meat pie since they are 2 items I miss here in the US, however I think I might have found a supplier

http://tinyurl.com/38chgx

YUM!

It was a sunny, scorchingly hot day in Liverpool and after touring the emigration museum on the docks we were desperately in need of a cold drink. An ice cream truck at the side of the road was like a lovely mirage come true. The vendor's little daughter and I could not make ourselves understood and finally her dad stood up from his seat in the shadows in the back and yelled "'Ere now, OICECREAM!" over and over. I was shaking with fear and dehydration. The little girl leaned over and said, "Coke?" and all was well.

Am I the only one who can't see 'brunch', 'Omelette Arnold Bennett' and 'Eastenders' in the same sentence?

Seeing as Omelette Arnold Bennet was invented by the Savoy and Brunch is for people who don't have to get up in the morning to open the caff, you need to get back into the midset of the average Eastender.

Rather than 'brunch' think of it as a few pints with nibbles on the side. Ignore all suggestions for bacon sandwiches, beans on toast and other hot items that come out of a pan as it sounds like this stuff is going to sit one a doily somewhere going a bit curly at the edges.

'Aunt Marge's funeral' as Flanner mentioned earlier is probably closest to the mark in style of food for this occasion. Has anyone suggested pork pie yet? I loves me a bit of pork pie. There's no doubt a recipe out then somewhere. And the best bit - you eat it cold, so perfect for 'brunch'.

Pork pies, sossidge rolls, scotch eggs, little sossidges on sticks, cheese and pineapple hedgehog, vols au vent, bacon and egg pie (or quiche if you're a wrong 'un); sarnies to include ham and tomato, cheese and (branston) pickle, pickled onions; pickled egggs; crisps (salt n vinegar; ready salted; cheese and onion and hedgehog); twiglets.

Tinned beers - various.

Sorted.