PEAS, beans, rice and canned meats... all sold by the hundredweight at Fred Astley, which started as a provender merchant and grew into a pioneer of the ‘cash and carry’ trade in East Lancashire.

Our recent story of the firm’s launch of Paygo, back in the late 1950s, created much interest among readers and its former managing director Stanley Astley, who lives in Ramsgreave, also got in contact to tell us more.

For centuries, the Astley family were farmers on Hoghton Towers land, until Stanley’s grandfather Fred started as a provender merchant to the local farming community.

He also opened a baker’s at 110-112, King Street, Blackburn, next to the Cupal factory, to provide work for his three daughters and son, Albert, who was born in 1903.

Albert, Stan’s father, had started work at the age of 12, hauling empty cotton beams around the Birtwistle factories with a three-wheeler bicycle and trailer.

He was running the business, one of 16 wholesale grocers in Blackburn when, in 1958, he introduced cash and carry to the town, called ‘Pay as You Go’, or Paygo.

The cash and carry was set up in 1959, in Weir Street, and run by three of Albert’s sons, Stanley and twins Brian and Peter who were later joined by their brothers, David and Clive after they finished school.

Albert was chairman, while Stanley, who had trained as a buyer, but became managing director at the age of 27, devised the trading system and financial planning.

It grew so quickly that a year later it moved into the 72,000 sq ft Havelock Mill, and Stanley’s target for a £1million turnover was quickly met.

There were 14,000 different items available in the warehouse and Stanley remembers negotiating a deal for 300,000 tins of Heinz beans – and the street was gridlocked with lorry after delivery lorry.

He added: “We were very big in dry goods.I remember one of my first jobs was to buy five tons of rice varieties; unfortunately I bought the wrong type and it had to be sent back – I was fined 10s out of my £3 a week wages.”

Paygo also had a major contract with Del Monte and John West and used to sell to Booths, which then had a shop and café in King William Street.

The business had to overcome a number of disasters – a flood in 1964 and a fire a year later – but within 10 years it had four other branches in Lancashire, including Chorley and Burnley, which opened first in Bank Parade, before moving to Albert Street.

In the early 60s, Stanley formed an association with a Halifax cash and carry,Lawrence Batley and formed a national group of wholesalers under the banner of “Big N group”, later becoming its chairman.

In 1978 the company bought a 40,000 sq ft warehouse at Whitebirk, where Clive opened a non-food cash and carry and over the years branches were sold and a property company set up, building new homes at Bishops Garden; Burnley; Sabden; and Rishton.