Fred Grain ran a tobacconist, confectioner, and stationer’s shop at 72A Windmill Road (next to the former West’s Garden Centre site) from 1924 to 1934.

Above Frederick Grain and his wife

Right Frederick at his parents’ home at 34 New High Street in the 1890s, with his son of the same name. Frederick Grain junior was also a watchmaker at this shop from 1934 until his death in about 1975.

Photograph of F. J. Grain's shop in 1957

The shop was left to Mrs Freda Slaymaker on the death of Fred Grain, and she in turn left it to her daughter Jill Slaymaker. They let it out to Basil J. Williams, who made several alterations and ran it as a secondhand shop called the “Oxford Buy & Sell Store”.

When Williams left in the 1980s, No. 72A was sold to Richard Ford. Ford continued to run it as a secondhand shop, which he closed on 16 December 2006 and reopened in 2010.

In December 2007 a planning application (07/02480/FUL) to build a house at the end of its long back garden (which stretched as far as Norton Close) was approved.