Betty Curtis
Betty talks about shops in Maybury

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We had the dairy on the corner where we used to take the milk jug for a pint or a quart. You took your milk jug up there and they ladled it out of the milk churn; either you wanted a pint or a quart because you had the three size milk jugs in those days; half pint, pint and quart.

The bakery was opposite where we got the bread when it was still hot from the oven and ate the corner of the crust before we got it home. I remember it was ninepence a loaf and fourpence ha'penny for a small loaf. And the hot cross buns! I mean hot cross bun day, you didn't have them all the year; they were cooked on the Good Friday and they brought them round to your house. You either went up and got them or the girl used to come round with her big basket to the door with the bread, she brought bread round as well. And the hot cross buns were all hot!

We had the off licence on the corner of Arnold Road and Monument Road. You could buy broken biscuits in there for a ha’penny; he used to have a newspaper, half a page of newspaper, make a cone of it and put all broken up biscuits in - what he couldn’t sell - and you’d pay your ha’penny. 

Then of course, you could turn right off of Monument Road into Maybury Road, there was a parade of shops there. Then further up Maybury Road on the corner of Kings Road was the Parazone factory. It used to be a laundry and during the war, the Ekco radio people from Southend were evacuated to Woking and they took that place on.

Then going up Maybury Road, you got to the corner of North Road where the Woking Joinery was and further up was Robertson’s the furniture shop and he held auctions, furniture auctions. In Marlborough Road, that’s another road that leads through to Walton Road to Maybury Road, there was the parachute company. During the war, they made the parachutes and the girls used to get hold of all the odd bits of silk that were left, the odd bits and make up knickers.