REMINISCENCES from Elizabeth Gabb, 90, of Kinver Grange, Dursley. This is the second part of memories recorded about her home town

"Dursley was a very busy little place, with far too many shops for me to mention all of them.

There was an excellent Co-op, where the Warehouse nightclub is now, at the top of Parsonage Street - it had groceries and hardware on the ground floor, and drapery and miscellaneous goods upstairs.

There was also a cake shop and a small caf.

The lady I remember working there was Miss Irene Norville, she was a very well known musician and trained the Dursley Tabernacle Choir from strength to strength.

She was also my Sunday School teacher, she was respected by everyone and loved and admired by all her pupils.

I must mention that at that time most shops here delivered goods to people's doors - no plastic bags.

There were varied coloured carts and well-kept horses.

The Co-op was my favourite - a dark green cart with bold gold lettering, and a huge Shire horse with a brown coat, black mane and black tail, all so well kept and shining brasses on his harness.

Another incident concerning the First World War - I had six uncles in the Forces who came home on leave to Granny Bess, who lived next door to us.

It was all a bit hectic, especially if they came home more than one at a time.

One of them insisted on teaching me to sing - I must admit he did not make a good job of it, I still can't sing.

The songs were censored by my parents, I never knew why.

One song I was able to learn the words of:

'The roses round the door, makes me love mother more

I see my sweetheart Flo, and friends I used to know

When I get back to my home in Tennessee

Or when the fields are white with daisies

I'll return.'

Were these songs American? - why were they not in line with 'Tipperary' and 'Pack up your troubles' etc?

I must move on a few years.

At 14, I started work at Champions Carpet Factory.

In 1932, I met a young man I decided I liked very much - we were engaged in 1934, married in 1936.

My husband's name was Jim and we were very happy.

We lived in a very old cottage, in fact it was two cottages made into one which meant we had two lots of stairs and two bedrooms, with a water tap outside the back door and the loo closet at the bottom of the garden.

The Glos-shire accent was a language of its own - instead of saying 'You are silly', it is 'The bist a fool'; or telling someone to eat their food, 'Thou shat ate it'.