Browns Corn Stores

Towards the top end was Browns Corn Stores, which sold, would you believe, corn and seeds. I seem to remember they were also coal men, delivering coal in 1cwt sacks, direct to your door on a brown Austin lorry. The delivery men carried the coal in big coconut hair sacks on their backs. They wore a sort of leather back shield on which the coal bags rested, thus protecting them from the jagged lumps of coal in the bags. On the back of the lorry would be a huge set of scales which they used to put the empty sacks onto so that knew when the regulation cwt was attained. It was not unknown to get bags with a few good lumps on the top, and a fair stodge of powdery slack underneath. An occasional tip every so often usually assured the customer of a consistently 'better' sample! All coal men were as black as the ace of spades!

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