SIR — Watching a film recently on the onset of the war brought back many memories which changed my late teens from office work to a milk round and joining the Women's Land Army.

On reading Hilary Binding's Notes by the Way in the Free Press, the memories turned to pre-war ones.

I remember my visits to the sweet shop in Watery Lane. I spent some days with my aunt, who lived in Hemp Gardens, and she gave me and my cousin Geoff pennies to spend there.

Mrs Bale certainly knew what children liked, what a selection!

The name De Rosa reminded me of fish and chips as I grew up in Irnham Road and friends and I visited their shop in Summerland Place in the 1930s.

With the approach of the war, we missed them and assumed they had been interred.

I associated the name Ridlers with special shoes called Start-Rights, and when I tried on a pair I put my feet into an X-ray machine to make sure they fitted; this I thought was magic.

Question - can anyone remember the toast rack, a nickname for something seen around the streets of Minehead pre-war?

Joan Storey, 1922 and still going,

Spring Gardens,

Alcombe.