It is May 1950, and the newly-weds need a bed. Off to the family suppliers, the local Co-op, the one-stop shop for everything and a “divi” – dividend, or retrospective discount which was calculated on the total number, value, of sales over a period since the last calculation was made.

Everyone in Brum remembers their Mother’s divi number – mine was 83128 and the little slip of duplicate paper that every purchase generated was collected and retained to check on the system. The system was that the duplicate book from which the slip was torn, was sent to Cop-op head office for manual input to the ledger account for that holder. Imagine the number of people employed just to do that.

No apologies for the digression, as new or younger readers to theraybould web site may not be familiar with those life and times, not appreciate what an enormous influence the Co-op had over the Raybould family. Anyway, here we are buying their first (perhaps only) bedrooms suite.