Sunbury on Thames

The Wooden Shop

There was a time—not so very long ago, though it now feels like a dream half-remembered—when a small, unassuming building stood on a quiet street corner in Sunbury-on-Thames. It was called simply The Wooden Shop, though I doubt it ever had a sign to proclaim its name. It didn’t need one. Everyone knew it. Everyone loved it.

It was a fruit and vegetable shop, though to call it that seems somehow inadequate. To us children of the 1960s, it was a wonderland of colour and smell, a place where the wooden floor creaked in just the right way, and the bell above the door jingled like the first note of a friendly tune.

The shop itself was just what the name promised—built almost entirely of timber. Time had darkened the planks to a rich brown, and the smell of earth and apples had seeped into the very grain. There was always a chalkboard leaning outside the door with spidery white handwriting announcing the day’s specials—Cox’s Orange Pippins, Maris Piper potatoes, and plump tomatoes on the vine, still glistening from the early morning mist.

Old Mr Harris ran the place. He wore a thick brown apron over his shirt and tie, and his fingernails always had a trace of soil under them, no matter how often he scrubbed. He was kind, but brisk, like all true shopkeepers of that era. He had a pencil tucked behind one ear and a habit of humming war-time tunes as he arranged the apples just so, never letting a bruised one sneak into the pile.

We children would sometimes be sent down with a list from Mum and a coin purse full of shillings and ha’pennies. “Don’t dawdle!” she’d say, but we always did. How could we not? The Wooden Shop smelled of carrots pulled straight from the ground, of fresh mint, of dusty bananas ripening in their hanging bunch, and every now and then, of pipe smoke drifting in through the back door where Mr Harris took his tea.

There was no self-service nonsense. You told Mr Harris what you wanted, and he selected each item as though he were packing a gift. He knew how to choose fruit that would ripen just in time for Sunday, and which apples were best for crumbles. If you were lucky, and very polite, he might slip you a plum or a clementine and give you a conspiratorial wink. “Don’t tell your mother.”

The walls were lined with wooden crates and shelves, all uneven but sturdy. In the back corner stood a battered old weighing scale with brass pans and rusted iron weights. It tickled me pink to see Mr Harris deftly balance out exactly one pound of King Edward spuds without ever overdoing it.

In winter, the shop was dim and chilly, but in summer, the wooden panels seemed to glow golden in the sun. Bees sometimes hovered around the baskets of strawberries, and we’d stand outside, licking the juice off our fingers.

Eventually, of course, it closed. Supermarkets crept in, with their plastic trays and fluorescent lights. The Wooden Shop couldn’t compete. Mr Harris retired, the doorbell jingled no more, and one spring morning, we walked by to find the windows boarded up.

It’s gone now. I don’t even remember what stands there in its place—a row of flats, perhaps, or a car park. But in my memory, The Wooden Shop still stands proud on its corner. I still hear the bell above the door. I still smell the apples and damp earth. And I still see Mr Harris smiling behind his counter, humming a tune from a forgotten age.