Civic Pride: 1966 and all that... football 1, shopping 0

But the one thing I do know is I quite like football – especially England football. And it just happens that on this particular day England are playing a really important match. The final of the World Cup at Wembley.

I would’ve quite liked to watch the World Cup final with my dad, but I didn’t. My dad, a lifelong rugby player and oval ball fan, knew that, on this particular Saturday, the city centre would be virtually empty. So my mother and he decided to go down to town and do some shopping while it was nice and quiet.

My brother Simon was 11 years old and my sister Sarah, 8. Neither they nor I can remember if they went to town or stayed at home – but I do remember that I watched the World Cup final in the front room on my own.

I was a ‘good boy’, attended Deacon’s Grammar School for Boys, did my homework, was forced to play rugby (and hated it) and was a closet football fan, favourite players being the ageing Johnny Haynes, Bobby Charlton and the rough and ready Nobby Stiles.

I had been to a few Posh matches, the first being a 4-3 FA Cup 1st round victory against the mighty Shrewsbury Town in November 1969 but I was yet to be a regular attender. It was special to see football on telly, usually it was only FA Cup finals and certain international matches and BBC’s Match of the Day was in its infancy.

So, in 1966, what would’ve been so attractive about popping to town on Saturday for my parents and missing the World Cup Final? My father may well have gone into R.J. Glass (draper, milliner) to look for a new Harris tweed jacket or tie. Since he was a smoker he may have visited Finlay’s for a packet of cigarettes or some pipe tobacco and perhaps had a look in Hepworths (later to become Next), Gallyon’s (gunmakers and sports equipment) although I’m not sure why.

One of my dad’s favourite shops was Ellis Bell gents’ outfitters in Westgate, close to Shrives chemist and The Bull hotel. Outside they had mirrored reflective glass which you could look into and see a thousand versions of yourself – Peterborough’s very own hall of mirrors!

My mother may have tempted him to have a wander round the Market on Cathedral Square and would have certainly insisted on going to Marks & Spencer for a look. They would almost certainly have looked inside Shelton’s department store on Broadway and possibly followed that up with trips to Woolworth’s, Boots, Mac Fisheries, Campkins Cameras, Cine and Record shop or possibly the Co-op in Park Road.

My father wouldn’t have been seen dead in the supermarket opened by someone like Frank Brierley. Indeed, in July 1966, Mr Brierley’s cut-price emporium had only been open for a couple of months. It was the talk of the town but my father was extremely sceptical about its legitimacy. Over the next few years I bought few random, and perhaps downright peculiar items, including a pair of bright green fire-damaged loon pants, a vinyl album of the soundtrack to Mel Brooks’ film The Producers, marked as ‘non-foods’ and a pack of Dutch lager, the type of which I had not seen before or since but which might just have

fitted into the hold-all of a sailor from a timber boat docked at Wisbech.

Anyway, in 1966 I was at the in-between stage – I was no longer interested in toys from Fairways or Airfix models from Oliver Carley’s. I would have to wait a year or so before I hung around with the cool guys at Purdys, bought check hipsters from Harry Fentons or became infatuated with the girl from Shelton’s record department.

Of course my parents could have gone into a pub in the city centre. There were plenty including the Greyhound (Cathedral Square/Market Place), Bell & Oak (also in Cathedral Square/Market Place), the Bull & Dolphin (Bridge Street), Swan (Midgate, near Long Causeway junction), Black Boy & Trumpet (Long Causeway), Six Bells (Westgate) or even the legendary Still just next to the Westgate Arcade, complete with men-only bar and city

centre beer garden. However my slightly snooty parents were far more likely to drive out to a country pub with a garden for the kids – Fox & Hounds, White Hart at Ufford, Golden Pheasant at Etton, Fitzwilliam Arms at Castor or, on special occasions, the Haycock at Wansford.

Since both my parents are long gone, I will never know precisely which shops they visited on that July 1966 Saturday afternoon. However I do remember them coming back into the house and my dad asking, “Toby, is it over yet?” “No dad”, I replied, “it’s gone to extra time”.