WHAT a queue! I refer to the double-page spread in The Press, May 9, pages 20 and 21.

The orderly line of carnivores are shoppers at Wright’s butchers in Bridge Street, whose pork pies were the stuff of legend.

The meat-eating multitude extends along the frontage of 'Boyes' Walk Round Stores' to Ouse Bridge and it seems to keep going. It makes the legendary Scott’s butchers' queue in Low Petergate look lean by comparison.

Love the term ‘Walk Round Stores’ on the Boyes ‘headboard’ by the way. That’s as opposed to ‘Hop round’, ‘Cycle round’, ‘Skate round’ or Drive round’, all of which carry a higher risk factor. Boyes was then one of the few York establishments with lifts, another attraction.

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Read more: Wrights in Bridge Street: the best butchers in York?

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The ‘big Boyes’ could also draw a crowd, especially at Christmas with the advent of Santa. In fact the nearby Co-op Emporium, that ‘citizens’ temple to shopping’, and Boyes hosted rival Father Christmases, both popular with the younger populace and their families. Luckily, unseasonal hostilities between the two Santas never broke out due to ‘peace and goodwill etc’.

There were other multi-storey shops in the city centre such as Leak & Thorpe but we didn’t shop there. Too posh!

Derek Reed,

Middlethorpe Drive,

York