I can only wonder at the size of the family Jay Rayner mentions if it took a day and half to shop for them in the 1960s (The unromantic truth: supermarkets aren’t dying…, 11 October)? Was she by chance in a local army barracks, or perhaps she shopped for an entire school? I was 10 in 1962 and had to do the main shop on a Saturday for our family of four working adults – including my older brother and sister – plus my grandfather and myself, because my mum couldn’t lift the heavy bags. I could do the lot in an hour and a half, including carrying 20lb of potatoes in two bags to balance myself. We lived in a city and all the shops were two minutes away, unlike now where I have to drive 10 miles to the supermarket, park and queue for ages at checkouts and then drive home again. There’s nothing romantic about that either.
Eric Banks
Hamstreet, Kent
