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Birmingham butchers retail.

I would still like to hear more from butchers around the 60-70s who worked in the retail butchers meat trade around brum. i can remember dozens of workmates who i would like to make contact with .and customers who remember the staff of those days. supermarkets have taken over but the old butchers shops of those days must hold many memorys of customers and staff who share this period .
Do you know any of the men who worked at Bennetts on 4th in Brum? Do any of these names ring a bell in the early to mid 70s - Hobbs, Watts, or first names Roy, Gary or Fred? Working on ancestry. Thanks so much. Debbie
 
TASCOS and BCS Co-Op's had many butchery shops. I wonder when they stopped using sawdust on the floors?
Was it real saw dust back then ?, I do remember it on the floor but thinking back it was really fine, having made and still make more than my fair share of saw dust it's not all fine.
 
As butchers, throughout the Kingdom, usually had sawdust on their floors it presumably came from sawmills or factories that were in the woodworking trade. It was bagged, when created on a large scale, from the cyclones that extracted it from workshops. I suspect it would be of varying grades and maybe dependant of source of supply.
The Co-Operative movement, in those days, for instance, made furniture for sale in their larger stores. Small companies and one-man bands, I imagine, bought it from wherever it was available and at reasonable cost.
There are old style butchers usually in small towns, who use traditional methods of display, in the manner familiar to older people. I have not seen any with sawdust on the floor but I believe there are still some in the 21st. century.
It was not simply to absorb spillage from carcasses etc. but the sawdust also acted as a de-humidifier.
 
As butchers, throughout the Kingdom, usually had sawdust on their floors it presumably came from sawmills or factories that were in the woodworking trade. It was bagged, when created on a large scale, from the cyclones that extracted it from workshops. I suspect it would be of varying grades and maybe dependant of source of supply.
The Co-Operative movement, in those days, for instance, made furniture for sale in their larger stores. Small companies and one-man bands, I imagine, bought it from wherever it was available and at reasonable cost.
There are old style butchers usually in small towns, who use traditional methods of display, in the manner familiar to older people. I have not seen any with sawdust on the floor but I believe there are still some in the 21st. century.
It was not simply to absorb spillage from carcasses etc. but the sawdust also acted as a de-humidifier.
You are so right...……..I worked for WT Baker butcher mostly on Soho Rd and Birchfield Rd after school for about three years. It was my job to clean up the old saw dust and put down fresh every night. The saw dust varied so much! As soon a you picked it up with your had you could feel the difference.
 
As butchers, throughout the Kingdom, usually had sawdust on their floors it presumably came from sawmills or factories that were in the woodworking trade. It was bagged, when created on a large scale, from the cyclones that extracted it from workshops. I suspect it would be of varying grades and maybe dependant of source of supply.
The Co-Operative movement, in those days, for instance, made furniture for sale in their larger stores. Small companies and one-man bands, I imagine, bought it from wherever it was available and at reasonable cost.
There are old style butchers usually in small towns, who use traditional methods of display, in the manner familiar to older people. I have not seen any with sawdust on the floor but I believe there are still some in the 21st. century.
It was not simply to absorb spillage from carcasses etc. but the sawdust also acted as a de-humidifier.

Loved the old butchers shops, I always went in the one at The Wheatsheaf sheldon , with mum when we were kids then when I married and had kids, still used the same butchers, they knew you and there would be a bit of banter back and fore and yep there was sawdust on the floor. Miss not having a proper butcher , its all sold in supermarkets and definitely not the same!
 
thanks now i remember them.there was a green grocer by him that sold you a big bag of specks....brused fruit for a 1d.

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I am sure everyone was not shopping every day or so in a butcher's shop as we all know meat was a real treat.

So what were we buying and how often ?.
 
I am sure everyone was not shopping every day or so in a butcher's shop as we all know meat was a real treat.

So what were we buying and how often ?.
That would be dependant on the era. Pre WW2?, WW2 rationing?, post WW2 or later 20th./21st. century over indulgence? Too wide a question I think.
 
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I am sure everyone was not shopping every day or so in a butcher's shop as we all know meat was a real treat.

So what were we buying and how often ?.
Bob, for my three years at a butcher shop in the late 50's early 60's: New Zealand lamb, English lamb was expensive, we sold it but not much. Most beef was from Argentina, less expensive than English beef but not as good. The pork was all local as were the chickens and Turkey.
For cuts of meat, lamb necks, shoulder, liver and brains! Beef was mostly shin or stewing meat, rolled sirloin and chine with bone (the other end from sirloin), calves liver (lams was a premium) and ox tail which was a very low cost for making soup or stew.
Post and steak & kidney pies and Cornish pasties. throw in a couple of boxes of stuffing.
 
our butcher was len pritchard had his shop in george st just off villa st lozells...his son colin then went into the business...

lyn
 
Bob, for my three years at a butcher shop in the late 50's early 60's: New Zealand lamb, English lamb was expensive, we sold it but not much. Most beef was from Argentina, less expensive than English beef but not as good. The pork was all local as were the chickens and Turkey.
For cuts of meat, lamb necks, shoulder, liver and brains! Beef was mostly shin or stewing meat, rolled sirloin and chine with bone (the other end from sirloin), calves liver (lams was a premium) and ox tail which was a very low cost for making soup or stew.
Post and steak & kidney pies and Cornish pasties. throw in a couple of boxes of stuffing.
My mum sold bacon and sausage and pies in a tin and frozen faggots.
Sunday was a leg of lamb or roast pork and maybe kidneys on a Saturday with chips and that pretty much sums up our meat intake.
I think the cost of meat was a driving force for some of our choices for tea (dinner) beans on toast bubble and squeek and other things.
I am sure pigs trotters and oxtail were cheap and a good source of protein for many, but growing up I never had steak beef Wellington and when we had roast beef the the Yorkshire pudding was 3 times the size of the beef.
 
When I worked in No 6 Grocery, B'ham CoOp, we had a butchery branch, next door. Every so often I would be sent there to help out. Mad buggers, they had a language called butcher's backslang and they would pass comment on their customers. Basically, words were spelt backwards, so "girl", for example, was pronounced "elrig". There was much more.
 
When I worked in No 6 Grocery, B'ham CoOp, we had a butchery branch, next door. Every so often I would be sent there to help out. Mad buggers, they had a language called butcher's backslang and they would pass comment on their customers. Basically, words were spelt backwards, so "girl", for example, was pronounced "elrig". There was much more.
Oh my goodness! I remember that backslang.……...By the time I understood a little I started my apprenticeship.
 
I think that 'slang; was more universal than for butchers. I never bothered with it, it seemed vulgar, besides, there were more important and useful languages to learn. ;)
 
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