ALTRINCHAM author Stanley Hyman takes a fond and humorous look back at nearly 50 years in business in his book, Is Anything Alright?

He said he decided to set down his memories of a working life behind the counter for the sake of his own grandchildren at a firm founded by his own grandfather, Joseph Abraham Hyman in 1913.

Joseph survived one of the most notorious disaster of all time - the sinking of the Titanic - but Stanley insists this book was written purely for laughs.

The business, JA Hyman (Titanics) Ltd is a Kosher butchers and delicatessen and its outlets include a shop in Altrincham. The other shops are in Cheadle and north Manchester.

Stanley, 73, said: "They're all true stories of what happened in my working life and they're all hopefully, funny. Really it's a social history of a period, of certain people, and how things have changed."

The book is a nod to more trusting times and Stanley remembers visiting a bank at the close of business to get some change for the shop and being allowed to enter the vault alone to pick up the money he needed.

Stanley said: "In the 50's and 60's it was nothing to have a cat in the shop and everyone smoked. You had a fag in your mouth when you were serving a customer.

"When they came into a local shop they were a human being - if you go into a supermarket you're just a number. We had our good times and our bad times and we shared them together. They came to see me. If they went out happy, they'd come back again. It was a performance."

* Is Anything Alright? is available from any of the JA Hyman shops, Amazon, Manchester Jewish Museum or Dunham Forest Club, where Stanley is a member. The book is also available from stellar.books.co.uk.