MCCARTNEYS THE BUTCHERS
Yesterday I posted my work-in-progress artwork of McCartneys butchers shop. Does anyone remember it? Do you have any memories of it you’d like to share?
This photo is of John McCartney sitting outside his shop, which was on High Street. It was demolished years ago, and was sited at what is now the entrance into Welby Drive estate. The photo was, I think, taken in the 1940s. John was from Manchester and married a Gosberton girl, Selina Rogers. He opened his butchers shop in Gosberton around 1924. I don’t know if the butchers shop had been an existing business he took over, or whether it was a new shop. When John started running the shop, he only sold chilled meat. It would be some years later before he started slaughtering. John’s sons were also in the family trade, and the business expanded into Wigtoft and Sutterton. John died in 1950, but his wife Selina continued serving in the Gosberton shop which over a period of time wound down, eventually closing soon after Selina’s death in 1974. My artwork captures the shop as it probably looked in 1972, when it was on its last legs.
(Thanks goes to John’s grandson, John McCartney, for the photograph)
