In this week's story I would like to take you back to my early days in Regent Street, Bedminster, where my mum and dad, my elder sister and I lived opposite gran and granfer.

Nowadays, when I go to the supermarket, meat and fish come in little plastic trays, all cleaned and sanitised, ready to cook.

Although there are butchers in some supermarkets who will cut a joint, if customers wish, plastic trays with sell-by dates seem to be the norm.

My generation were brought up to be much more aware of the realities of life, and much less squeamish!

We were not allowed to be finicky.

Although I respect the views of vegetarians, and enjoy vegetables, I would find it difficult to never eat meat, and more particularly to give up fish, which I love.

However back to gran, who kept hens.

Sometimes she would have little fluffy chicks in her warm kitchen and I would love to play with them.

Then, as they grew bigger, they were put out in gran's back garden where they were fed and watered and scratched for worms.

As long as they were good layers, they lived happy lives.

Gran sold the eggs we didn't eat and believe me, those fresh boiled eggs with bread and butter, well, you couldn't get better.

I remember helping to feed them and they were all so friendly that they would come to me straightaway when I went into the garden to scatter the corn.

My gran always had a bucket of potato peelings boiling away on the stove.

Nowadays poultry keepers are advised not to feed hens on potato peelings.

But when people are relatively poor they use what is to hand and can't afford to waste.

There would inevitably come a time when those poor hens were ready for the chop.

I never saw him cut their throats, but granfer would say quite matter of factly, come Christmas, that that's what would happen.

After that the hens would be hung for a short while to bleed and then, while they were warm, they would have to be plucked ready for Christmas dinner.

In those days, chicken was a rare treat and we really enjoyed it.

My mum made lovely stuffing.

I can't ever remember getting upset about the hens being killed as I think I knew instinctively it was never cruelty for the sake of it.

It's just how it was.

The first Christmas after I was married my husband was offered a chicken in the pub – no questions asked.

He brought it home and mum gave me some of her stuffing.

This was fine until Christmas morning when to my horror I discovered that it still had its innards.

Luckily my father-in-law came to the rescue.

Cows would be a common sight being driven past Regent Street on their way to the slaughter house.

When I asked my mum where they were going she would say, quite matter of factly, "to the slaughter house to be killed".

We used to go to the butcher's shop on the end of our road run by Mrs Moss.

You could see calves hanging up – perhaps even one of those from the slaughter house – but if mum bought a skinned rabbit I used to skip all down the street as it would mean not only rabbit stew but rabbit pie.

Even after I married in 1951 I bought rabbits as they weren't on ration.

Right up to the time they got myxomatosis I used to stuff them and roast them just like a joint.

I thought my dad was so lucky when mum cooked him sheep's brains and sweetbreads (sheep's testicles) with streaky bacon.

He always gave me a taste.

At that time, of course, I didn't know what sweetbreads were.

Gran would go to Bedminster late on Saturday night and wait for Stan Butt to sell off his meat cheap.

Regent Street was where I first ate snails.

After we had picked them off the ivy leaves, gran would then cook them.

Gran said they were like winkles, which I loved, but lived on the land instead of the sea.

Years later, when I went to France, I ate l'escargot (French snails) with garlic butter.

They were quite expensive but, you know, they tasted about the same as gran's.

See you next week.