On 8 May History Club members and guests enjoyed a fascinating talk by Josie Midwinter about her parents’ shop in Didcot, enhanced by a model of the shop and specimens of ration books.
Josie’s father Henry Midwinter shrewdly set up the grocery, confectionery and tobacco shop immediately opposite Didcot railway station, attracting much custom from railway staff, train and bus passengers, and the Army Ordnance Depot. During rationing, the shop received exactly the cheese needed to supply each registered customer with their allotted 2 oz per week. In practice, customers got their precisely cut ration, and the Midwinter family had the crumbs left over.
The shop was a cheerful place, where Henry always found time to listen to customers. Without refrigerators, they could not stock, for example, meat pies, but did sell their own bacon. They also provided much-used cycle storage (for 4d a day), and took and received parcels carried by local buses.
The family sold the shop after Henry died in 1963, when customers had begun to prefer the chain stores in the new Didcot Broadway. Josie’s experience of being able to talk to anyone was the foundation for her subsequent vocation as a priest.
On 12 June, in a change to the previously advertised programme, Stephen Barker will talk about women who took part in the English Civil Wars, undertook spying missions and negotiated deals with politicians.