I, together with my brother Graham Bartlett both worked after school and at weekends trussing chickens, plucking pheasants, serving customers, filleting fish, skinning Skate, cleaning the fridges and floors, burning the wooden fish boxes and having a cracking time (all for 20p an hour). Apart from Bill Brewster, also working there was Dave Brewster (Bills son who lived above the shop with his wife Sue) and Colin Varney. I was quite often asked by my seniors in the shop “have you sold the dlo (old spelt backwards Lemon sole yet? For a bit of sport when the live eels came in and were put on the slab, in a brown hessian sack. Graham of I would dowse the sack in cold water and loosen the end resulting in serpent like creature writhing around the slab and floor to the horror of customers (and our delight). At 20p an hour it was worth it for the sheer fun. I was more like a vintage Will Hay film, absoultly priceless. I also worked for Alan Brewster at the hoddesdon shop whilst awaitng my enlistment date for HMF.
In my teens I worked there part time early 70’s cleaning up the scraps and burning the boxes that the produce came in. Stinky job but learnt to fillet and prepare game. Great memories
William Brewster (Bill) – the owner, is on the right in this photo. He was in partnership with his younger brother Alan Henry Brewster, who had a wet fish, poultry and game shop in Hoddesdon. This shop was opened soon after WW2. The fish is displayed on white marble slabs. Fish came from Grimsby, Fleetwood and Billingsgate Market in London. At the end of the war the brothers would drive to Billingsgate to collect fish, crabs etc at 4am and return to sell it to the public. Later, fish would come by train and was collected from Broxbourne station.
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I, together with my brother Graham Bartlett both worked after school and at weekends trussing chickens, plucking pheasants, serving customers, filleting fish, skinning Skate, cleaning the fridges and floors, burning the wooden fish boxes and having a cracking time (all for 20p an hour). Apart from Bill Brewster, also working there was Dave Brewster (Bills son who lived above the shop with his wife Sue) and Colin Varney. I was quite often asked by my seniors in the shop “have you sold the dlo (old spelt backwards Lemon sole yet? For a bit of sport when the live eels came in and were put on the slab, in a brown hessian sack. Graham of I would dowse the sack in cold water and loosen the end resulting in serpent like creature writhing around the slab and floor to the horror of customers (and our delight). At 20p an hour it was worth it for the sheer fun. I was more like a vintage Will Hay film, absoultly priceless. I also worked for Alan Brewster at the hoddesdon shop whilst awaitng my enlistment date for HMF.
Richard Bartlett – 30/12/2020
In my teens I worked there part time early 70’s cleaning up the scraps and burning the boxes that the produce came in. Stinky job but learnt to fillet and prepare game. Great memories
William Brewster (Bill) – the owner, is on the right in this photo. He was in partnership with his younger brother Alan Henry Brewster, who had a wet fish, poultry and game shop in Hoddesdon. This shop was opened soon after WW2. The fish is displayed on white marble slabs. Fish came from Grimsby, Fleetwood and Billingsgate Market in London. At the end of the war the brothers would drive to Billingsgate to collect fish, crabs etc at 4am and return to sell it to the public. Later, fish would come by train and was collected from Broxbourne station.