THE VILLAGE SHOP, TORWORTH

A BRIEF HISTORY

It was late September, 1947, not long after the end of World War 2, when Daphne Tinker took over the tenancy of the village shop in Torworth, this being a gift from her parents on her seventeenth birthday.

Daphne had learned the art of shopkeeping at Woolworths in Retford, after leaving school at the age of fourteen. The landlord of the shop at this time had the audacity to charge the sum of five shillings per week or £1 per month (old money).

The shop at this time was extremely small, although Daphne managed to stock almost everything required by the villagers, including petrol and paraffin. The only method of heating the shop at this time was a combustion stove fed by solid fuel. Imagine the excitement on the day the petrol tanker called to fill the underground tank which was situated immediately below the wooden floor of the shop. At this time Daphne spent many an hour on a Sunday afternoon waiting for the passing motorist who needed refuelling.

So things went on until 1965 when the shop and storeroom, which was situated some distance away, together with the ten adjoining cottages, was purchased by East Retford Rural District Council, who immediately increased the rent by well over 100% to £2 7s 4d per month.

Eventually, in 1968, the Council announced that the shop, storeroom and all ten cottages were to be demolished and replaced with four houses, six 0.A.P. bungalows and a new shop with flat over. Once completed, Daphne and her friends transported everything, lock, stock and barrel, to the new shop, all of twenty yards away.

The new shop seemed almost too large to manage, but Daphne soon filled the shelves and displays and trading was soon back to normal.

Worse was to cane with the introduction in 1972 of decimalisation, quickly followed by Value Added Tax. All this had to be learned and it was like going back to school.

Daphne finally retired in 1989 after forty two years in business.

R.Tinker

(STAR Magazine December 2002)