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| Tradesmen and other Visitors |
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Shapwick was served by two bakers' vans from Wimborne - Cowdrey's green Morris van and Pfrangley's white and blue Commer. Of the two, Mr Pfrangley was the more interesting, in his dark grey workcoat, wicker basket loaded with piping hot loaves in the crook of his arm, and thick glasses on his nose, and a shock of white hair - a remarkable sight as he made his way from roadside to back door in a peculiar quick step with his back slightly stooped.
The Co-op Van came on Thursdays after Rag, Tag and Bobtail. The large red Commercial Travelling Shop had a distinctive sound. Two white-coated men worked the Van. One, a tall distinguished white haired man, and a younger, bespectacled man with dark curly hair, who always packed the vittels into a cardboard box and carried it up the path to the kitchen table. The initials CWS - Co-operative Wholesale Society - were painted on the Van. For some reason, known only to young kids, the Van became the "Cee Wee Ess" Van. The Royal Mail arrived in a Morris van, the papers also by a small van from the paper shop at Stur. Coal was brought on a Bedford lorry. I cannot recall any other deliveries, although there must have been milk because not all Shapwick people worked the farms. Once, the Biscuit lorry, having called at the Shop, fell off the road near White Mill into the meadow below and caught fire. With the efficiency of coastal wreckers, the blackened square tins were quickly emptied of the edible contents... There was never a Doctors Surgery, so a trip to Wimborne was necessary to see the Doctor, although a early call (from the one telephone box near the Cross) would have the Doctor at your house before lunch. I recall Dr Leggett, a young Doctor, and Dr Mallett, an older man with a sterner bedside manner, and always seemed to have cold hands! Green Hants and Dorset buses ("pants and corsets"), served the Village from Wimborne with the number 25 service. It ran twice daily I believe with an extra midday run on market days. Nearly always a double decker too, with driver and clippie. What service! Travelling gipsies also moved through the Village each year selling bits and pieces along with the usual clothes pegs. For some years in the sixties, a mobile Fish and Chip Van visited on Saturday nights and many a fish supper was consumed. Ann Ross contributes, "There was also Shepherds van, which seemed to carry everything from hardware, pots & pans to oil & crockery. It was like a mobile walk-in shop. Then there was the milkmen Bronco Masterman & Reg Edwards from Stur who carried the milk in churns in the front baskets of their bikes and people brought their jugs out to them."
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