Haven't got to the bottom of the shopping yet

Right, let's get back to shopping, because it's a few years into my life before the idea of my having anything to do with actually shopping for my own clothes.
From what I've read, a lot of the sustainability stuff seems to direct me back to how stuff was when I was little. When we moved from West London to a small village in Cambridgeshire it was the 1950's, and things were a little different. There was a village shop, and as I remember my mother placed her order there by writing down what she wanted in a small notebook. This was handed in to Mr Sargeant, and he would pack up what she wanted in a box and deliver it to us, with the price of each item written in and added up. She would then settle her bill. everything was very personal, it was about getting good service and being a loyal customer. Later on, my mother ceased to be so loyal, when she discovered that she could get what she wanted by going in to "town" as we called it, and buying from Mr Sainsbury. This meant that she had to carry it all home on the bus, so this is where I came in again.
I have a picture of the Cambridge Sainsbury's on the wall in my kitchen, it reminds me of my mum, which is why I think I got it.This Sainsburys was not the supermarket you'd find there now, it was on a different spot, and it was magical. There were paralell long counters with seperate sections for things like butter, cheese, bacon, and meat. You had to queue up seperately to buy at each counter. This resulted in a complicated system of queues which meant sometimes there were three or four lines down the shop, with no clear indication which counter they were for. To save time my mother would plant me in a queue, with the instruction to call her if I got to the front before she'd been served in the queue she had joined. For years I squirmed as my mother did her best to instruct me in the art of shopping effectively.
Initially , when I was only allowed to queue but not purchase, I often found myself confronted by the sales person, and having to call my mother.
"It's all right!she's with me,"she would call across the shop,
"I'll be with you shortly"
Once she decided to allow me to graduate to the buying status it was even worse.
" Don't go to that man, he's useless. Go to the man in glasses. He knows me. "
Shops seemed to be full of people my mother laid claim to knowing her. This was shorthand for picking out the best stuff. Going to those who knew her was much better than the other option.
So I learned to shop through relationships, people to know and trust, people who served you well.