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Teashops and cafes of yesteryear hold countless memories for older Derby people and Bygones readers love to hear about them. One Derby teashop which was run by different owners over several decades and was especially popular was in Tenant Street. Joan Collins, who was a waitress at the cafe as a young woman in the 1940s, looks back to her time there. Pat Parkin reports.

Nearly 60 years after she left her job as a waitress at the teashop in Tenant Street, Derby, Joan Collins still gets stopped in the street by people who remember her working there.

“I can’t believe after all this time people still remember me,” said Joan (nee Sharman), of Sinfin. “I know it was a very popular place and so I suppose I help them to think about the good times they had there, but it was a very long time ago.”

The cafe has long since gone but in the later years of the Second World War, when Ada Roberts ran it and Joan was a waitress, it was a popular venue for people to drop in for tea and cakes.

Ada’s husband, Tom, was a gents’ hairdresser and ran the busy barber’s shop next door. They had a young daughter, Margaret, who would call sometimes after school before returning to their Littleover home with her parents. Said Joan: “It was a really happy place to work and everyone was so nice. There were about eight of us and we all agreed Mrs Roberts was a wonderful employer.

“She did all the cooking, which was mainly sandwiches and salads, snacks like beans, cheese or tomatoes on toast, lots and lots of cakes and fabulous trifles.

“The tables were beautifully laid with cloths. Each customer had their own teapot and we had proper two-tier cake stands from which they could choose whatever they wanted.”

The food was not just enjoyed by the numerous customers. Staff were given a lunch each day, with the highlight of their week being Friday afternoons, after the shop and cafe had closed, when Mrs Roberts would cook them all a bacon and egg meal.

“Then she would join us to eat and we all had a nice chat. I always remember that, despite all the problems of rationing and things not being available during the war, she used fresh eggs, not the powdered stuff everyone else had,” said Joan. She went to work at the cafe in 1944, after 12 months of being confined to her home in Kelly Street, Derby, recovering from rheumatic fever.

She had left Beaufort Street School at 14 and her first job was at Woolworth’s store in Victoria Street but after her illness, she never went back.

“I had no qualifications, like most other people at the time. For part of the war, we went to school only every other week – boys one week and girls the next. That was because we could only use the upstairs part of our school as the ground floor had been requisitioned by the government. It was fitted with beds for casualties and run by air raid wardens.”

After her recovery, Joan applied to the teashop for a job and, as was the case in those days, was accompanied by her mother when she went for an interview. She was promptly hired and worked a five-day week because the cafe was closed on Mondays so Mrs Roberts could do the washing.

All the staff became good friends and Joan still recalls her pals, Sheila Blore, Ivy Flint, Doreen Thornhill, Margaret and Minnie, the “washer-upper”.

The clientele included old and young and every Saturday, which was the busiest day of the week, a local men’s hockey team would drop in for tea after their game.

“There were 16 to 20 of them. We always had to get the upstairs ready for them so they could eat straight away. They loved the trifle, like everyone did, but the cakes were popular too,” said Joan.

As the war drew to a close, the cafe became busier and, eventually, in 1948, Mrs Roberts decided to retire and sold it. Joan, in the meantime, had met Charlie Collins, the cousin of her friend, Hilda Thorpe, when he returned from six years’ Army service in Burma.

“Hilda and I were going to a dance one night at Markeaton Park where a lot of servicemen were stationed. I was getting ready and had curlers in my hair when I realised I needed to check the time we were going.

“I biked over to her house in my curlers and Charlie turned up. We both thought he was very nice. I dashed home as fast as I could to change but, unfortunately, he had left by the time I returned all dressed up to go out.”

But Charlie soon became a regular visitor and eventually he and Joan began “courting,” eventually marrying in November 1948 at St Mark’s Church.

Sadly, Charlie suffered poor health and after their marriage spent nine months in Derwent Isolation Hospital with tuberculosis.

He eventually developed lung disease and died aged only 50, leaving Joan to bring up their four daughters. She had to work hard doing school dinners and working as a waitress for Cockeram and Tivey, the licensed victuallers who ran bars at numerous venues in Derby, including the King’s Hall and the Albert Hall. She also worked in the bar at the old Derby Assembly Rooms and the Railway Institute.

Now aged 79, she still keeps busy enjoying the company of her four daughters, nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Her happiest memory of the Tenant Street cafe was being invited each year to the beautiful home of her employer for a Christmas party.

She also treasures a Learning to Cook book which Mrs Roberts gave her when she became engaged. “She said it would help me when I got married and it certainly did come in very useful and my family have used it, too,” said Joan.

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County:  Derbyshire

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