Long established family shopkeepers are difficult to find in towns today. But in Brentford, if you wander around the Victorian terraced back streets, a small handful of them still open their doors for business every day – a tradition that dates back generations.

Greengrocer, Bill Daubney, aged 65, is one whose name has been above his shop in Brook Road South for the last 46 years, and could conjure up an entire panorama of Brentford as fresh as his vegetables.

Bill produced two oval gilt framed portraits of his parents, “I only found them the other day” he said. He recalled that the pictures cost 24 shillings each. “My mother paid 6d a week for them” he said.

Bill, his parents and seven brothers and sisters , lived in a small cottage in Albany Road, one street away from where he works now.

His father was a greengrocer, and his grandfather worked in the fish trade. Both were born and bred in Brentford. Continue reading “Daubney’s Greengrocers, 45 Brook Road”