I can remember all the shops that were in Diss at the time, more than 50 years ago, including the Publishing Co, which was mentioned in the paper on March 21.

It was kept for a long time by a Mr Bowell, known locally as Jay, I'm not sure what his name was.

One shop I've not seen mentioned was the lovely Chocolate Box run by the Short family.

The shelves were full of jars of boiled sweets along with liquorice and sherbet dabs. The chocolates made your mouth water but we could only have them on special occasions.

Aniseed balls were favourites because you got a few of them for one penny.

This shop was next to the bank in Mere Street and the other side of the bank was the butcher (now Cannells) owned by Mr and Mrs Wells, who both had parts of fingers missing, courtesy of the slicing machine no doubt.

The floor was often covered with clean sawdust.

Opposite the Sun public house was a very nice ladies dress shop run by Leslie Sharp, a bit of a Clark Gable lookalike, and his very smart wife. The shop and Mrs Sharp always had the latest fashions.

Further up Mere Street was a tiny cafe run by Miss Nellie Ireland. It only had a few tables in what would have been her front parlour.

My sister Joyce worked there for a time when she first left school. It was also a small off licence and I believe they used to sell quite a bit of stout.

One favourite shop, especially for the children was in St Nicholas Street. It was run by Miss Philpot and she sold everything from paraffin to clothes pegs and toys galore.

The shop was so full of goods that it was difficult to know what she did sell but whatever you asked for she would rummage around under all sorts of things and come up with exactly what you wanted.

We used to buy whips and tops, skipping ropes, hoops etc, depending what the craze was at the time.

There were three chemist shops in Diss; Gibsons in Mere Street, Goslings on Market Hill – Pump Hill we used to call it – and Bately and Strattons in St Nicholas Street.

Men and women were well catered for with clothes and shoe shops and the Co-op had two department stores, one at each end of the town, selling groceries, shoes, clothes, furniture. At the Victoria Road store they had a nice little baker's shop.

Another probably forgotten shop was the wireless shop in Mere Street owned by Mr Gordon Chalice. He used to collect and deliver batteries and accumulators which had to be refilled in order to keep the radios working.

I was friendly with their daughter Marion, and it was the highlight of the week to go out in the car with them to deliver the replenished batteries to people in the countryside.

Mr Chalice organised a concert party of young people in Diss. My brother Ron used to play drums and mouth organ in the group.

The wireless shop later became Losens bakery.

Another place that deserves a mention was the saddlery in Chapel Street run by Mr Mortimer.