New member.....please be gentle!! Looking through everyone's "shopping" memories brings a couple back for me, based in the Olton/Acock's Green area in the 1950's. I went to Dolphin Lane Primary School in Acock's Green (now called "Oaklands"), and many's the afternoon when I would walk down Dolphin Lane after school to catch the "Midland Red" bus home to Olton (Summerfield Road). Opposite the bus stop was a Grocer's shop called "Tustin's", and I used to buy a sheet of rice paper for a halfpenny!!
Sweets came from a proper little corner shop run by Jim Beck...his was the little shop virtually under the bridge at Olton Station. Loose sweets from the jar, Corona bottles of pop that you got 2d back on, when you returned the bottle. Big memory at Jim Beck's shop, however, was that it provided me with my first "employment", as a paper boy. I had to be at the shop for 6.30am, and Jim would have my bag all ready with the correct number of morning papers, and the big card with delivery details. Conveniently enough, the round (which started just near the shop) followed a route around Olton - Ulverly Green Road, Castle Lane, Highwood Avenue etc., ending on Summerfield Road just near my house. Finish the round at about 7.45am, gobble down breakfast, and then back on the pushbike (bought from Roberts' cycle shop, on the main road in Acock's Green as a reward for passing the 11-plus)....hopefully getting to the pedestrian bridge over the main GWR line near the top of Dovehouse Lane in time to see the 8am express from Snow Hill pounding its way to London Paddington.
I'd better end here, I can see the nurse approaching with my medication....... ;-)
Happy memories!!!