Nostalgia with Margaret Watson: Fond memories of Jubb's Grocery Store in Batley Carr

Margaret Watson writes: WHEN you’re young you don’t take much notice of what’s going on around you because you don’t realise that what you’re seeing will one day be social history.

The shops we went into as children were just shops, nothing interesting there except what we’d gone in to buy.

Usually, sugar weighed out in blue paper bags, biscuits in big tins with glass lids so we could see inside and make our choice – a few of those and a few of them.

Tubs of golden butter the shopkeeper scooped out with a large wooden spatula and placed on weighing scales using brass weights in pounds and ounces.

It was history in the making but we didn’t know it, and now we have to search back in time if ever we want to recall those moments of childhood.

In my day, shops sold their own special things and didn’t encroach on the other shops.

The grocer sold groceries… the greengrocer fruit and vegetables, the fishmonger fish and the butcher meat.

These shops played an important part in our lives and we thought they’d always be there because who could have foreseen that the little corner shop would one day almost disappear?

Certain incidents stand out in my mind, so insignificant that I cannot for the life of me understand why, they are still as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday.

I remember the first loaf of bread I bought from Mrs Baker’s shop only a few doors from our house in Victoria Road, Springfield.

It cost 4d and was white and uncut with a shiny crust.

Her name was “Baker”, which is why I always thought she had baked it herself, especially because it was always so fresh and smelled delicious.

The memory of Mrs Baker handing that loaf to me, unwrapped, and her hand reaching over the counter to take my four penny coppers, is as vivid today as it was over 70 years ago.

Why this memory is so etched in my mind is probably because I was hungry at the time and waiting in anticipation for a slice of jam and bread when I got home.

One shop which I always loved was called Jubb’s, situated on the Flatts where we’d gone to live when we left Springfield.

I always thought it had an unusual name and I’d noticed over the years there were many other stores of that name in most parts of Dewsbury and further afield.

It was much later I learned that Jubb was not a trade name as I’d imagined, like ‘The Maypole’ in Dewsbury town centre, but was the name of the man who had founded them, Mr William Jubb, a local entrepreneur.

He lived in a house called ‘Maison Croft’ in Northfields, Dewsbury, just opposite St John’s Masonic Lodge on Halifax Road, of which he was a devoted member.

Mr Jubb was a born businessman, as his remarkable success as a grocer and provision merchant was to later testify.

In the early 1900s, he opened his first shop on Boothroyd Lane, and by the 1930s he had no fewer than 15 branches, with headquarters at Batley Carr.

In his obituary in the Reporter it stated that he was a kindly and benevolent man whose loss would be felt in many quarters where his generous purse had been at the disposal of many worthy causes.

A native of Syke House, Snaith, William came to Dewsbury with his parents at the age of eight and was educated at Carlton Road School. He received his first insight into business affairs at the Crown Stores in Mirfield, whence he proceeded to Messrs Seymour and Mead’s in Manchester to undergo an apprenticeship as a grocer and provision dealer.

When he was 28, Mr Jubb commenced business on his own account at Boothroyd Lane, and his ability and energy quickly found their reward.

Readers may be interested to know he had stores not only in Dewsbury but also in Batley, Huddersfield and Sowerby Bridge, but his headquarters always remained in Batley Carr.

His businesses, which had always been progressive, continued long after his death.

But in the 1950s and 60s, one by one they began to disappear as slum clearance of these areas took hold.

He was a prominent Wesleyan and worshipped at Centenery Methodist Church at the top of Daisy Hill.

Mr Jubb was one of the most liberal subscribers to church funds.

One of his special delights was to furnish the flowers for the Sunday school anniversaries.

He was large hearted and non-grudging, and it was said of him that he never permitted his left hand to know the good acts his right hand did.

Quietly and unobtrusively he helped many men in need, and the welfare of service and ex-servicemen made a special appeal to his benevolence.

He was also an ideal employer, and the fact that most of his branch managers had seen many years’ service in his shops testified to his popularity with the staff.

Mr Jubb played an important part in the history of Dewsbury, and yet most of us only knew him as a sign above a corner shop.

I hope I have rectified that today, and only wish I’d taken more notice of his stores.

I should imagine a lot of people reading this column today will now feel the same.

Men like Mr Jubb and women like Mrs Baker were all part of the rich tapestry of life which used to be ours but we never appreciated it.

Last week I mentioned that the Collins Cinema in Batley Carr, which was demolished due to slum clearance, could have been situated at the bottom of Dale Street or King Street, and hoped someone would tell me which.

Well someone did - and it wasn’t in either of them, but at the bottom of Victoria Street, which was in the same vicinity.

We live and learn.

* You can email your recollections of Dewsbury in years gone by to: [email protected]Read more: https://www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/nostalgia-with-margaret-watson-fond-memories-of-old-batley-carr-3592612