NOSTALGIA: How times have changed

This picture, taken a century or so ago, shows Mr A O Coles, a carrier who operated between Long Buckby, Daventry and Northampton.

The photographic plate was unearthed by a former Daventry Weekly Express editor, Walter Green, of Long Buckby, who spotted the Foster Brothers advertisement on the side of the cart.

A curious and intrigued Mr Green took the plate into the firm’s shop on Daventry’s High Street in 1980, when this photo first appeared in the newspaper.

A bit of research revealed that Mr Coles first came to Long Buckby in 1908 to work at a newly opened shoe factory.

He then became a carrier but disposed of his business due to failing health, a few years before he died in 1916.

At the time the photograph was first printed, some 37 years ago, Mr Coles still had a son and daughter living in Long Buckby.

Gertie Cross, then 86, remembered delivering parcels for her father when she was, in her words, “very young”.

George Coles, 78 in 1980, also recalled accompanying his father on his delivery rounds.