A trip down memory lane

Yesterday I took a trip to the first place I ever learnt the skills of butchery way back in 1971 aged fifteen. The butcher's shop belonged to a Mrs Bosworth at the time and is now owned by Barry Fitch and his sons. The business is located in a place called Little Eaton - a village on the outskirts of Derby. Mr Fitch and his staff were very welcoming as I turned up out of the blue asking to be shown around the premises in order to gather together some details for a proposed book I am writing about my years in the butchery trade - off and on - throughout my life so far. The proposed book will concentrate on amusing stories and be chock full of 1970s and 1980s detail.

I took along my camera and Dictaphone and had a thoroughly enjoyable day exploring my past and relishing a day in the Derbyshire countryside. I did a lot of talking to myself collecting fine audio details on my country walks and was utterly delighted when I got given a paper bag from Bosworth's that they would have used in the 1960s. Check out the phone number and put you penny in slot A. Some of you may be too young to understand the last reference. Such is life!

As well as making forty-six audio recordings I also took a lot of photos around the shop and in the village and found a phone box with books in it and met two very handsome baby cows in a field. There was a street called The Town, a derelict old house that looked haunted and the old village Post Office was a dank boarded up shell of a building with ripped out postboxes and tatty green baize in the window - the sort that greengrocers pretend is grass.

More Derbyshire walks for me in the future! And, Mr Fitch the cornish pasty was superb, thanks.