When I was a child, the only time I ran errands was when I went to spend time with my grandparents in St George’s. For some reason, my grandmother never made a grocery list and now, when I think about it, why should she? She had me!

I had to remember every item, and off I went with the money tightly secured and knotted at the end of a handkerchief. I spent half my day between Outerbridge’s for a variety of grocery items or Robertson’s Drugstore, where I was required to order and wait for a chicken salad sandwich — obviously was her favourite, as she never ordered anything different.

My husband, on the other hand, grew up on Dundonald Street in the era when fishermen drove around with open-back carts filled with freshly caught fish covered with sack cloth and blowing a conch shell. It was the era when the Portuguese farmers drove their carts around the neighbourhood blowing a familiar whistle informing customers of their presence.

It was the era when you left your empty milk bottles on the doorstep with a milk ticket wedged in the top and had them replaced by fresh milk with cream at the top. It was also the era of mom-and-pop shops.

My husband recalled that of his five siblings he seemed to have been the chosen errand runner, and was most frequently sent to Mr Royer’s on the corner of Court Street and Elliot Street — or to Mr Crisson’s located in Alpha House between Union Street and Dundonald Street. The Crisson family lived upstairs, with the shop on the ground floor. The entrance was on the Union Street side.

In fact, the shop was owned and run by a Mr Christensen; however, in typical Bermudian fashion, everyone called him “Mr Crisson” and Mr Royer’s shop was commonly called “Royals”. So I will write occasionally using the adulterated community name for the owners of these businesses.

Tyril and Zillah Royer arrived in Bermuda from the island of Dominica some time around the 1920s. They were devout Roman Catholics who attended St Theresa’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.

In 1934, Mr Royer worked with officers from the Prospect Garrison where he operated a steam shovel used for quarrying stone to create the Black Watch Pass. For a period, he was employed in a store on Friswell’s Hill before moving to the Court Street Grocery Store owned by O.R. Loblein & Sons. In 1954, he purchased the business.

At that time, the Royers lived on Till’s Hill on a road opposite Progressive Labour Party headquarters and were assisted after school, on weekends and on school holidays by their three daughters.

In the 1930s, Mr Royer was known to regularly participate in contact bridge tournaments at the Aeolian Hall with men such as E.F. Gordon and E.T. Richards.

Contract bridge, according to Google, is a card game for four, typically played in two partnerships. It is described as a cerebral sport that teaches you logic, reasoning, quick thinking, patience and partnership skills.

The Aeolian Hall was located opposite the Pembroke Youth Centre on Angle Street. Various community events such as dances were held there and, according to Venita Caesar-Smith, young people often called Aeolian Hall “Gene Autry’s Horse Stable” during the days of segregation when movies, especially Westerns, were shown there.

In the 19th-century Bermuda Church Register, it lists Hans Ulrich Christensen as a grocer in 1912 when his daughter was born. His shop was the only one offering credit, and his accounting system was unique.

High on the shelf behind him was a string with a nail attached and hanging down to the counter. When you purchased on credit, he added everything up on a paper which he punctured with the nail and slid it up the string. Occasionally, my husband observed an embarrassed customer who did not have sufficient money to pay for the goods tallied up. He also noted Mr Crisson discreetly call them to the side to suggest they open an account and pay at the end of the month.

Credit sales for each day were together on the string and by the end of the month there were crowds of people queuing to pay their bills. It reminded him of people waiting to enter the movie theatre.

There was an overpowering smell of kerosene when entering both these shops. I was ignorant about kerosene and its various uses, so I consulted my friend, Bill Anderson, who is in his early nineties. All of the grocery shops had a large barrel outside, usually at the back of the shop, elevated on a concrete base with a tap. Kerosene was delivered by horse and cart from the oil docks at Ferry Reach, and customers brought their own containers. It was the fuel used for lamps, heaters, three-burner wick stoves and refrigerators, as Bermuda had no electricity until 1908.

He also remembered a friend who frequently made himself a cocktail of kerosene and pineapple juice. I was suitably horrified until he laughingly admitted that his friend had lived to a ripe old age. When asked if he had tried it, he quickly responded that he had not!

The layout of the shops was almost similar — high shelves reaching almost to the ceiling, filled with a vast variety of products such as bread, evaporated and condensed milk, sardines and corned beef, as well as bay rum, witch hazel, cod-liver oil, castor oil and gripe Water used for babies with colic. There was Lifebuoy soap, Sunlight soap and Rinso, which was a laundry detergent, and Blu for making white clothes whiter. Lard and butter were sold according to the quantity the customer requested.

The grocer stood behind the counter, which ran across the back of the shop and down both sides. On the counter, there was always a wide holder for a large roll of greaseproof paper and a roll of string sitting on a large nail to keep it in place. A cone was created with the paper for an order of hard candy. The large candy bottles sat tipped towards the server, who used a scoop to collect the quantity requested. Often, people purchased a circular stick of Bermuda peppermint rock candy, which was bright pink on the outside and white on the inside, with the word “Bermuda” embedded in red.

When it was your turn, you asked for whatever you required — or, if you had a list, they simply took it and filled out the order, resting each item on the counter. Although Mr Crisson provided a bag, my husband recalled his mother sending him with a sturdy oilskin bag that had handles and a diamond design on both sides.

There were wooden cases of mineral (soda) bottles stacked as high as possible and filled with mineral in numerous flavours such as O-So Grape, Sarsaparilla, Sunkist orange, strawberry, lime, pineapple, ginger ale, root beer and ginger beer. Mineral was not a daily drink for most families, but was usually served at Christmas and for other special occasions. Throughout the year, children searched for empty bottles to return to the shop for a small refund.

Barrels of salt beef, pig’s feet and pig’s tails were kept at the back of the shops and sold in quantities requested. From the ceiling, there were bunches of bananas that were cut to order. Codfish was sold loose from flat, wooden crates. My mother-in-law preferred dumb-fish, which was a thicker cut of salted fish, but also requested bone in codfish for the family. To this day, my husband avoids eating any fish prepared with bones. For me, this is not an issue as I spent my youth in Jamaica, where I quickly learnt to negotiate that situation!

As a child, Bill Anderson recalled ships sailing with barrels of codfish to feed the crew. On one occasion, a ship ran aground spilling barrels of salted cod into the sea where they were carried by the tide to shore — to the delight of those Bermudians who were on hand to make a famous claim of “finders keepers”.

These shops carried just about everything the community needed. My husband recalled something simply called Flit, which was the brand name for an insecticide invented in the early 1920s that was used to kill flies and mosquitoes. The shop had a bulk supply, but you had to separate the container from the atomiser to be refilled. He also recalled that when his mother gave him a piece of paper tightly folded and advised him to hand it unopened to the shopkeeper, he knew this had to be a personal feminine hygiene item — and, sure enough, a box of Modess sanitary napkins would appear!

These shops were always busy, but more so at lunchtime. While one person attended to the grocery section, the other made sandwiches. Mr Royer and Mr Crisson were the sandwich makers. Sandwiches made from generously, hand-cut slices of Bermuda rye bread were made on request with a variety of fillings — from boiled ham to spiced ham, bologna, tongue or yellow cheese.

In November, they sold firecrackers and at Easter they sold kites. Throughout the year, they sold skipping rope, spinning tops, marbles and jacks. At Christmas, they sold cassava roots ready for grating, as well as Christmas trees and decorations.

In a Royal Gazette article written by David Fox on January 31, 1997, Hans Ulrich Christensen was described as the majority owner and founder of Globe Forwarding. He was 82 at the time of reporting, and had not been active in the business owing to a stroke. He had begun the business in 1954 when he took over a truck from his sister and brother-in-law. One year later, he went into the forwarding business and Globe Forwarding was born. He was described as one of the pioneers in the container-hauling business, but unfortunately the loss of the military bases dealt a severe blow to the firm.

The Royers’ Court Street Grocery Store was destroyed by arsonists during the April 1968 riot. The Royers rebuilt a three-storey building in the same location that reopened in September 1969 as fully air-conditioned with storage on the lower floor, a self-service supermarket on the main floor and four apartments on the upper floor.

Although, I have focused on the two larger businesses in the area, not to be overlooked is Clayton Richardson’s snowball shop located in a three-storey building on the corner of Union Street. Mr Richardson was one of the founding members of Young Men’s Social Club, and was heavily involved in cricket, football and the wellbeing of young people in his community.

According to former Social Club and Bermuda football captain Larry Darrell — also a highly regarded shortstop in men’s fast-pitch softball — Mr Richardson was so engaged that he would regularly take a break from business and catch a taxi to oversee football training at the Robert Crawford School Field.

Fellow historian and former PLP politician Dale Butler recalled the snowball shop and its counter with red swivel, high-backed chairs, while my husband remembered the ice deliverymen in aprons that went down to their ankles and the large block of 4ft by 1ft ice that was delivered on a flatbed cart. According to Mr Butler, Mr Richardson was the first to introduce his signature snowballs covered in Carnation Evaporated Milk. Upon entering the store, my husband recalled the special sound of Mr Richardson grating the ice by hand and customers patiently awaiting their turn.

Because Venita Caesar-Smith had assisted in her grandfather’s business in Somerset, she was able to described the grater used for scraping ice for snowballs. It was triangular in shape at the top, with a flat bottom for grating. There was a hinge connecting the two. As you shaved the ice forward, backward and forward once more, shaved ice would accumulate — and when you opened the grater and tapped it sharply, the ice would drop into the awaiting paper cup. She was often sent by train from Somerset to Hamilton to purchase citric acid from the pharmaceutical section of the Phoenix drugstore, which was then located on the corner of Reid Street and Queen Street. Citric acid was an important flavouring agent used when the sugar and water were boiled with flavours such as pineapple or strawberry to make the syrup. During the war years, sugar was rationed and condensed milk was used to flavour snowballs.

Before the passing last year of Dale Butler’s Uncle Winston, he gave him a list of 56 thriving businesses in and around the area. This indicates that during those times, people seldom had to leave their neighbourhood to shop, to visit the doctor or dentist, or the pharmacy, as there was Robinson’s Drugstore. There were barbers, hairdressers, tailors and seamstresses. The list seems endless.

• Cecille Snaith-Simmons is a retired nurse, historian, writer and author of The Bermuda Cookbook. With thanks to Bill Anderson, Billy Young, Venita Caesar-Smith, John Payne, Larry Darrell, Joy Wilson-Tucker, Dale Butler, Linda Abend and my husband, Lionel Simmons, who also restores photographs used for my articles. Mrs Simmons, in conjunction with The Royal Gazette, reserves all rights in relation to the unapproved repurposing of her works

References:

The Royal Gazette (January 31, 1997)

The Workers Voice (November 30, 1979)

The Royal Gazette (September 13, 1969)

19th Century Bermuda Church Register, pg 541 (A.C. Hollis Hallett)