Remembering the lamplighters and the sweet shop

I was born in 1927

My grandfather was Charles Alfred Harriott (1868-1950) and my grandmother was Charlotte Harriott (1869-1936). Sometimes known as Paine, my grandfather had the fruiterers and greengrocers shop on the corner of Sussex Street and Nelson Street, the address was 116 Sussex Street. where I was born in 1927. The greengrocers shop fronted Nelson Street, and there was also a basement fronting Sussex Street, from where he sold coal. Just before the demolition he got a lock-up place in Sussex Terrace which was run by his son Leonard.

Gas lit street lamps

On the other corner of Nelson Street was Harvey’s sweet shop where I used to buy a halfpenny bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. Harvey’s daughter Ivy married Fred Carrington. On the corner outside our shop, was the old gas lit street lamp and the lamplighter came round night and morning to put it on or off with his long pole. We also had gas lamps in the house and had to replace the gas mantles every so often. Further up Sussex Street lived the Gearings; the husband worked for the old tramways.

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Grandad’s Shetland pony

I always got confused with Richmond Street which was a steep hill running between Grand Parade and Queens Park Road and Richmond Hill which was a level street running between Sussex Street and Carlton Hill. My granddad had a Shetland pony called Bubbles, and a cart that sometimes stood outside the shop. The pony and cart were stabled in Richmond Hill where one side of the road was all stables. A short time after I was born my father and mother, George and Charlotte, myself, and my younger sister Audrey, moved to Sussex Terrace for a while. Then before the second war we moved to Pankhurst Avenue, my granddad then moved in with us.