Lynn eggman retires after heart op
IT'S no yolk – Lynn's legendary eggman Reg Miller will be shutting up shop for the last time today (30) at the ripe old age of 88.
Reg has become a familiar face in Norfolk Street over the past 71 years, having run The Egg Shop for the past 40 years and a fish and chip shop at the same premises for 19 years before that.
He went to live at number 28 when he was 17 in June 1936. His mother, May, ran the shop through the Second World War, selling all sorts of goods, including sweets, secondhand clothes and dead rabbits.
Reg, who got married in 1940, went into the Army when he was 20 and finished his service in 1947. He took over the shop, and changed it to fish and chips, the following year when his mother died and left it to him.
He has concentrated on selling eggs, "but with a little bit of greengrocery thrown in", since 1967, the year after his wife, Grace, died.
The supply of eggs has come from his younger son Derek (60), who keeps chickens on a farm near The Sportsman pub in West Winch Road. Older son Allan (65) is now retired.
Reg would have carried on in business even longer if he had not had heart problems. Earlier this year, he spent eight weeks in hospital and underwent a triple heart bypass operation at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire.
"If I had been a bit healthier I would have carried on forever and a day," he said. "But I'm packing up now and would like to go abroad on holiday, although the insurance is a problem because of my age and heart condition."
Reg, of Common Close, West Winch, said: "I've become known as the fish and chip man or the eggman and people have come in for a chat, as much as buying eggs."
He reckons he has been the oldest surviving trader in Norfolk Street – and probably the whole of Lynn. He said: "There's not the same familiarity in the street now. The traders used to have a Christmas party and the trading hours are very different. I used to open at 7.30am
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Weather for Kings Lynn
Thursday 09 September 2010
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 16 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: South west
