In message <JAfwGONKmG3BFwns@pandorasbox2.demon.co.uk>, Dorothy Gibbs <dorothy.gibbs@pandorasbox2.demon.co.uk> writes >Are messages getting through to the list? Well I see this one did so I will try and send one attached to this that I sent earlier... TWICE! Grin ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Hi Joe and Muriel Can you remember the old Barracks Square market in Coventry before the war? We used to have a Saturday afternoon jaunt down there with my Mum and elder sister. If you went late in the day everything was cheaper because of the weekend coming. I remember well the hissing gas lamps on the stalls. It was always dusk when we were there because of the need to save money on the cheaper goods. The heaps of boiled sweets on the stalls.... pear drops and fishes smelled strongly of acetate but tasted good. Jelly babies... I had to kill it first by eating the head! Then I usually ate the legs putting off the inevitable of having to eat the rear end... I swear it tasted different! Grin There was a great Arcade of shops leading to the market and I can remember the smell as we went past grocers shops.. the roasted coffee for instance. These shops usually had sawdust on the floor and it was fun scuffing it about. Sugar in blue bags. (Still called sugar paper in craft shops.) We used to have a real treat, biscuits .... broken biscuits were cheap and we were usually lucky and got some really nice ones among them... sometimes even chocolate ones. They didn't come pre-packed in those days of course so it was easy to break them while weighing out for customers. Sometimes also we used to buy bits of ham... the ends bits and those that broke off while carving it on the bone. Tasted just the same to us. Sometimes it was yellow fish for tea.... smoked haddock. The arcade was on a slope and if we kids got lost, the trick was to go to the bottom and look back... we could always spot my Mum who was tall and generally wore a hat when she was out, then we could make our way back. Then the tram ride home. Exiting stuff for a little one and I can still smell it all now when I think of it. Dorothy -- Dorothy Gibbs (in Hertfordshire UK)