CARRIED AWAY

How do you carry home your shopping? Do you have a multitude of plastic bags, a cardboard box, or are you one of those forward looking people that order their groceries on-line and have them delivered by a man in a smart van?
Fifty years ago, in Birmingham's Bull Ring there was a street trader who made her living by selling paper carrier bags. Her plaintive cry which could be heard above the din of the traffic was " `Andy carrier, `andy carrier!". She carried her wares under her arm, they were strong brown carriers with reinforced handles of red and white plaited string. At two pence each they were a better bargain than those sold in the nearby newsagents, and they were indeed " `andy." I was often glad to take one from her to carry back the second hand books I had bought in the open air market close by St Martin's Church.
The old lady seemed to have a steady trade, for in those days the life of a paper carrier was comparatively short. Over-ripe fruit, cracked eggs, and leaking milk bottles soon made their way through the paper sides, and it only needed a heavy downpour of rain to make them soggy and useless. Imagine what it was like to be standing on a crowded bus and to have the bottom of your carrier collapse. Those string handles would leave red marks as they cut into your fingers and would often part company with the rest of the bag.
In those days, Woolworth and Marks and Spencer sold carrier bags in distinctive styles from their many tills, but chose not to add any their name or any advertising matter, possibly to that "it wasn't quite the thing" to be seen with a carrier bag. Every lady shopper had her own wicker basket. However, sometimes you might be given a gaily decorated paper carrier from the greengrocer suggesting that you should "EAT MORE FRUIT."
Was it the wartime paper shortage or an increase in the volume of shopping that heralded the introduction of the string bag? It certainly held much more
than the paper carrier, even though it made it possible for all your fellow shoppers to see exactly what you had bought. When it was empty, the string bag was small enough to be carried in a pocket or handbag, and the handles were large enough for comfort. Fashions change, and string bags ended up as a receptacle for school kit or sports clothes, although there are rumours that they might be making a come-back.
The big change came with the advent of the plastic bag. Tough, resilient and virtually waterproof, they could be used to carry home a week's shopping even in the heaviest downpour. This time there was no reluctance on the part of the stores to use the bags as a means of advertising. Slowly at first, the names began to appear on plastic bags, and they were given away! Marks had white plastic bags for their food department, and green ones for general purchases.
As the use of plastic bags crept up market so shoppers flaunted their purchases, and were quite proud to let it be known that they had been "Carried away at Liberty's". By the sixties you could carry home your shopping in a Snoopy cartoon, a map of the Underground, or that ultimate sign of the swinging Sixties, a Union flag.
As time went by so a certain status appeal grew up in a plastic bag from a major airline, with perhaps a few more brownie points for a yellow bag from a duty-free shop, especially if it still carried a customs seal. The greatest status symbol must surely be the dark green plastic bag often seen being handed to the chauffeur outside a certain store in Knightsbridge, even if it no longer has the Royal patronage.
Nowadays it seems that we have used too many non-biodegradable plastic bags and are harming the environment. Some stores are using a plastic that will decompose, while others are encouraging us to have a "bag for life", and in Ireland a charge is made for every plastic carrier. Perhaps learned archaeologists of the future will start excavating these brightly coloured plastic remains and draw up maps dividing the country into Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury regions.
Maybe in years to come, the use of plastic bags will be forbidden by law, and the newly developed Birmingham Bull Ring will once again hear the street cry of "Andy carrier" as brown paper carrier bags come into their own.