Butchers' shops in early 1900s Edmonton, north London

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When my mother sent me on errands to buy meat, it was always to the butcher's shop at the corner of Bulwer Road in Edmonton.

This shop was fairly typical of the other butcher's shops in Edmonton. I had to go there about once a week and it was usually to get 3/4 of a pound of leg of beef and a 1/4 of a pound of beef suet for a meat pudding. I was never happy about this errand because my mother would always tell me to tell the butcher that she didn't want too much sinew. Yet far too often there was too much for her taste. Then she made me take the meat back which made me feel uncomfortable.

The suet was bought as a lump and the butcher sometimes cut it out of a side of beef while I watched. These sides of beef would either be hanging up from large hooks suspended in the shop or in an ice-safe which was kept cool with ice supplied by the ice man.

Sausages were made in full view in a red sausage machine. In at the top would go the meat (and probably some meal and flavourings as well, although I can't be sure). Then the butcher would put the skins on the nozzle and turn the handle. It was fascinating for me to see him take the long string of the emerging sausage in this hands and with a flip of his fingers make a string of individual sausages. These would be put over a hook and hung in the shop window.

It was not unusual for bones to be on sale for women to use to flavour their soups. Lumps of fat were on sale too for rendering down for dripping, which was a popular meal on its own, spread on a slice of toast.

The butcher had the appearance of a butcher because he was big with a florid face and he had a belt round his waist which was unusual for other shop-keepers. He kept the shop beautifully clean with fresh sawdust on the floor and shiny tiles on the walls. At the end of every day, the chopping board, which looked rather like a heavy three-legged stool was scrubbed with a wire brush and then washed. The chopper and knives had the same treatment. The day's sawdust, which had absorbed or coated spills, was swept up and new was put down.

My mother didn't stay with one butcher. She loved looking at meat in butchers' shops. She would say, "That’s a lovely bit of beef", etc. I wouldn’t have known.