I was intrigued and humoured by Martin Hopkins's letter, Why I'm voting Tesco (Oxford Mail, April 25).

I wonder if he knows that this supermarket giant has humble beginnings just down the road from him.

The story has it that Jack Cohen, who had some connection with the tea trade in Hackney, London, used to stand at Wantage Market in the 1920s and probably opened his first shop in the Market Square.

I talked to his first manageress in Grove a few years ago.

I wondered why he travelled all the way from London to stand on the market and why Wantage?

She replied: "Horses, my dear."

It seems Jack liked racing, and where better to get his tips with all those Lambourn stables down the road?

I also found out the name Tesco comes from Jack's wife TESsa COhen.

Asda comes from Associated Dairies which, I believe, had its first supermarket in Lincolnshire in the late 1960s.

Paul Ewers

Brill