Sounds like the start of a 1970s end of the pier joke, you might think, but read on.
We are fortunate to still have in our possession a selection of beautiful leather-bound early sales ledgers for D. Byrne & Co., the earliest dating back to between the two world wars. In those days we were a general grocery business, selling a selection of wines and spirits, but a large proportion of our trade was with local farmers, selling animal feed and other such products.
Our poisons ledger has some interesting entries!
Leafing through the earliest ledgers, what were we selling?
Oats (both horse feed and for human breakfasts)
Rolled bacon
Duck eggs
Vaseline
Rinso for clothes washing
Twist tobacco
Woodbine cigarettes
Coffee
Tinned salmon
Loose wrapped butter
Flaked maize and Bran feed
Hay
Cattle and sheep cake feed
Sacks of potatoes
Cob salt
Pig meal
Spratt’s chicken meal
Olive oil (more for ears than Mediterranean cooking)
Hound meal
Cases of onions
Soda syphons
Germolene
Fresh yeast
Stone jars of beer
Sheep dip
Champagne various
Dried peas and split lentils
Dog biscuits
Fish meal
Amontillado Sherry
Tinned plums
Oak mansion polish
Donkey stones
Rum and whisky
Coffee
Bovril
Baby chicken wash
Sanatogen Tonic Wine
Andrews Liver Salts (unsurprising!)
You decide who was eating or drinking or bathing in what!
