Immersion in vintage packaging triggered memories of small town shopping with my mother In the early 1950s.

Buying fruit and veggies from our greengrocer meant sawdust on the floor, a free biscuit from the barrel by the counter, and the hopeful offer of a kitten (the shop cat was forever producing large, home-seeking litters). An offer firmly rejected by my mother, ignoring "Why can't we ..?', 'I'll look after ...", looks so sad ...".

Follow the money had a different meaning in those days. Buying socks and underpants in the menswear only store was a novel experience, gazing upwards as it zipped along a wire above my head, circling the room until it reached the book-keeper's hidey-hole upstairs, and waiting until our change flew back around.

Time for new school shoes? A trip to the only shoe shop in town. A few minutes spent browsing the pleasing window display of adult shoes, then into the brightly lit shop smelling faintly of leather.

"School shoes, please." Out would come the small footstool with built in adjustable width and breadth measure, ensuring potential growth was accurately accommodated. A practical marketing initiative supplied by Clarke's. All shoes came in shades of brown or black. Hence the never to be forgotten moment when I received a pair of red 'kitten' heels (to be worn with white socks). And whatever happened to half sizes?

A hand-pull would draw us toward Polly's. Impossible to pass in summer when the little café opened out its front window to sell rich Italian home made ice-cream. A welcome departure from our home made version of frozen evaporated milk set in an ice-block tray. Polly had a mass of dark curly hair and big glasses. Her cornets were either vanilla or chocolate, piled high and meltingly delicious.

Two jewellers, always worth pausing for. One was also a watchmaker, the window glinting with shiny things displayed on velvet trays against a backdrop of ticking faces, confusingly set at various times.

Keeping pace with mother down the street, unevenly so as not to step on pavement cracks because that was really - though unspecified - unlucky. If I was wriggling a little too much, we'd call in at the tiled public lavatory for me to "spend a penny" after the traditional search for change to pop in the cubicle slot.

Finally, enticing aromas from the Home Made bakery. A "split tin" loaf and hot jam doughnuts with real jam so fresh they squashed down to half size as you tried to eat them. Not walking home, of course, only ice cream was acceptable street food.

What a miracle our memories are when stories drift to the surface simply from seeing old boxes and bottles, packets and parcels.