In the summer of 1933 we moved into 52 Kerr Street, between MacDonald Ave.(now Westside Dr.) and Herald Ave. Half a block one way was Penman’s store. Half a block the other was Bamber’s Red and White Store. In Penman’s, five cents would go a long way to satisfying your craving for candy. Sister Margaret drove the delivery truck for Bill Bamber when all the young men were off fighting a war. She later became a driver in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps.

Deliveries played a big role in your life back then. A wagon, similar to the one above brought Ferrah’s Bread to your door. Two other horse-drawn delivery wagons at that time were the Gilbrae Dairy and Canada Bread. Canada Bread was baked in Hamilton and trucked in the wee hours to a stable somewhere behind Guild’s Bookstore. There, Bev Bertram readied his horse for a long day’s work and filled the wagon with bread and pastries. He covered the whole town, both East and West. I earned my first dollar working for him on Saturdays. Bread was 7 cents a loaf with some special loaves, like Hovis, costing 10 cents. In Winter, it was dark before we finished.

Hilmer’s and McDermont’s used trucks to deliver coal and wood in the Winter, and ice for the ice boxes in the Summer. We used to run behind the ice deliveries in the summer in hopes of getting a small piece of ice from the driver. My friend Buster Lockett fell under the rear wheels of the truck one day and lost his life. That was the first funeral that I attended, at Russell’s Funeral Home when it was located on Dunn Street behind Dunn’s Drug Store. The main floor was packed and we children sat on the stairs leading to the second floor. The pallbearers were his classmates: Ivan Wood, Stanley Croll, Murray Leonard, Nat Fergusson, Vern Simpson, plus George Watson.

Every month we could expect a visit from the Fuller Brush Man, the Rawleigh’s Medicine Man and the “Tea Man”, a salesman from the Ocean Blend Tea Company who would replenish my Mother’s tea supplies. Another monthly visitor was Mr. Sherry, of Prudential Insurance. He would lay out the small books for each child on the dining room table and enter the small amount my Mother would pay for their life insurance.

An unorthodox delivery occurred during the Summer. Johnnie Walsh pushed an English style baby carriage up Kerr Street, laden with pies that his Mother had made in her Church Street home. I can almost taste them.

Bob Hughes