I HAVE been remembering things about my life in Sinfin and talking to my brother, Keith, about when we were children growing up there in the late 40s.

We were remembering the local butcher down there, Mr Jones, who was at the butcher's shop on Grassmere Crescent.

On a Saturday morning, he used to take meat orders around on a special bike with a metal carrier sitting above the front.

Later, the same bike was used by a different shop at Sinfin and Littleover, called Coopers.

Mr Cooper once told me, when I lived at Littleover, that the shop which supplied those carrier bikes was based at Normanton Barracks just below the junction of Balaclava Road and the beginning of the main road, the beginning of Osmaston Park Road, opposite the main gate into Normanton Road.

Does anyone remember Barty's shop? The man who owned it was still there in the 1990s. I used to stop there sometimes on my bike going home from work to get a bicycle part.

He also used to sell televisions and radios.

I believe that shop was founded in the 1930s and run by the same family until it was sold off, as the man who last had it still used to repair cycles.

So there's a bit of history for readers to remember.

How times have changed, including the amount of traffic on those roads.

Any deliveries by butchers these days are by vans, they no longer use bicycles!

Barrie Siddons

Mablethorpe

Do you remember any of the shops mentioned by Barrie? Do you have your own memories of shops and businesses in Derby to share with Bygones? Write to us – contact details on Page 2.