MORNING SERIAL
THE Berni’s was the place to find more upmarket confectionery too, like boxes of Black Magic or (all because the lady loves…) Milk Tray. Either of these were ideal choices for Mothers’ Day. There were After Eights for Christmas as well as Matchmakers in mint or orange flavour, Fry’s Chocolate Cream bars and Bourneville dark chocolate of which I was wary, unsure if I was allowed it since the TV advert said it was ‘for adults only’.
The Berni’s was a place to linger and adults gossiped as children gawped at the hundreds of sugary choices on offer. The Berni’s seemed to me to be the beating heart of the village where everyone, in time, would meet everyone else.
Another frequent destination for errands was Trevor the Ironmonger’s shop to fetch a pint of paraffin for the heater in our bathroom (Boom boom boom boom Esso Blue! sang the TV advert).
Trevor was a small, neat man who wore a brown overall coat with carpenter’s pencils in his top pocket. His shop, on the other hand, was anything but neat and he stood behind his counter surveying a welter of goods spread all around and so seemingly disorganised and topsy-turvy that it resembled the aftermath of an explosion.
Shelves all around the walls were crammed, seemingly at random, with overflowing boxes of nails, screws, nuts and bolts of every conceivable size, sold singly or by the pound.
Tins of paint and varnish, candles, chains, rope, piping and hand tools of every description filled even more boxes and buckets that crowded out every inch of floor space save for a winding, narrow little path from the counter to the door.
On fine days the pressure for space spilled half of Trevor’s wares outside onto the pavement, and under a canvas awning there would appear a teetering outdoor display of yard brushes, chimney brushes, hand brushes, shovels, spades, and garden rakes crammed into shiny galvanised dustbins.
I loved the intoxicating smell of Trevor’s shop; a powerful aroma of glue and paint and turpentine, of paraffin and putty and linseed oil.