My father’s working class credentials were in hindsight impeccable; born and brought up in a back to back terrace house in an industrial inner city part of Leeds, with an outdoor netty, a railway marshalling yard across the way, Blakeys seg factory next door to that and a tripe shop at the end of the street.
Someone bought me this tripe label for a laugh as it’s my surname, but what a sign of different times. One of the problems with tripe is the long cooking time needed to make it digestible, hence the tripe shop (plus it was a cheap source of protein). But Robinsons of Hull (established 1870) brought this working class staple to the corner shop by pre-cooking and canning it. While the salt level might be high, apart from MSG the can seems to have far fewer nasties than some processed foods today do. And no “serving suggestion” line needed either, people in those days had the common sense not to expect a ceramic cook pot in the tin! The product label is remarkably workmanlike, when you think of the trouble gone to these days to make tin stand out on a supermarket shelf. But then shops in general were more counter service at the time.
Robinson’s meanwhile were still going strong in the 1960s, very much a small business, with the product canned by hand. Sadly what the bombers had missed, Hull City Council finished off (indeed are still finishing off), and there is nothing left of the old Sitwell Street. I am reminded that my uncle in Hull worked in the food trade for most of his life, just round the corner, a firm which imported bottled fruit and jams from Poland. It’s a small world.
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