Mrs Katie Sproat tells its story: "It was after the second world war we started the shop in a building that had originally been a byre. My husband had been master plumber at the Castle and used to store his tools and pipes in it. So we opened first as an ironmongery selling pots and pans, candles, tilly lamps, gas mantles, wicks, paraffin etc., and we put up our sign, 'William J. Sproat & Son, General Merchants.'

After a while someone suggested we should sell sweets and tobacco too, so we got a licence to do this and later permission to sell groceries as well. We were given a few thousand coupons to start off with as everything had to have coupons in those days - bread, flour, sugar, tea etc - and it was a lot of extra work counting the coupons at the end of each month and sending them away to the Ministry of Food. What a relief it was when rationing ended!

Ours was a happy shop. My husband always had a cheery word for everyone and people could come to buy at any time as we lived just across the road from it. Archie, our son, used to collect the goods from the pier in a barrow at first and later in a van which we also used to deliver groceries every Wednesday and Friday. Archie drove the van and his Uncle handed out the message boxes to each house. We sold butchers' meat too and Archie used to chop up sides of beef and mutton. Lamb was very popular and my husband used to say each sheep would need half a dozen legs to keep all our customers happy! There'd be a queue outside the door sometimes on Mondays and Wednesdays when the meat came in and the phone would be red hot!

We kept our shelves well stocked and people used to say they could always get anything in Sproat's wee shop. We retired in 1970 after twenty-five years in the business and my husband passed away seven years later."