Do you remember Charlie? He was a curmugeonly old guy who would hand-cut certain types of key, do tool repairs and other odd jobs. The bit out the back of the ironmongers was where he had his workshop. So while you were getting your pet bedding he may have stuck his head out to swear at you.
We younger members of staff were all a bit scared of him. I think the only words he spoke to me was when I took some mortice lock keys to him to be cut and said "they want 3 copies of each" to which he replied "greedy bastards".
He was probably a perfectly nice bloke, but that's my memory.