Father and son Phillip and Ross Collins have been dishing out fruit, veg and cheery banter in Bridge Street for almost 10 years.

During the decade they have been in town they seem to have got to know everyone - and everyone knows them. So what's the story behind this blooming business at 41 Bridge Street?

Amy Lou's at 9 o'clock on a Thursday morning is a busy place.

"The people are very friendly, the town is very nice," Phillip told Nub News as he and assistant Daisy Margaillan packed boxes of fruit and veg ready for delivery to homes and pubs across the area.

"Half a pound of mushrooms... Daisy get us some of that asparagus," he interrupts himself.

"Hello young lady, how are you today?" to a woman buying strawberries.

Daisy dashes past and out the door, a carrier bag of fruit and veg in each hand. "Don't forget the milk!" Phillip calls after her.

Halfway through our chat Ross pulls up in the van, sweeps into the shop and out again with another two boxes for home delivery, pausing just long enough to have his picture taken in the doorway.

Phillip and Ross are proud Londoners and come from a long line of greengrocers. Displayed on the wall are photos of the Collins fruit and veg shop in Chiswick High Street run by Phillip's Nan single-handed after her husband died. The family also had a stall in Chiswick High Street, as well as a couple of other stalls across West London.

"I'm supposed to be semi-retired," grumbles Phillip good-naturedly, before launching into the story of how the Collinses ended up such an integral part of the Godalming shopping scene.

Eleven years ago the family had just sold their shop in High Wycombe.

"We were looking for another shop and looked at Haslemere and Midhurst but they really weren't right," he said. ("Hello young man, how are you today? How's that brother of yours?")

"After Woolworths shut I stood in the doorway, I was fly pitching, and the council said 'You're not allowed to do this,' so I said 'Give me a chance,' and they let me finish the day.

"A girl came up who had bought some cherries from me, and she said they were the best cherries she'd ever eaten."

It turned out the lady customer was one of the organisers of a market in the town, and she offered Philip a stall. That was in the summer, and the weather - and the trade - was "fantastic".

"I thought to myself, 'This is a good little town'," he recalls.

And so he made the decision to set up shop in Godalming: starting in the High Street in a former carpet shop opposite the King's Arms. The business was allowed to trade until a permanent tenant could be found: that happened 10 months later.

"We built up such a nice little trade," he says. "Within the month we had got this," - indicating the shop in which we stood - "and we had installed ourselves in here."

'Here' is the Bridge Street building that for many years housed the wool shop, now with a greengrocer's green awning, chirpy signage and a tempting display of fruit and vegetables out the front.

They had a party the day they opened - in the autumn of 2010, probably October, judging by the pile of pumpkins on display, Phillip thinks.

The shop is busy, with a steady stream of people coming in for their fruit and vegetables, as well as for milk, eggs from Great Hookley Farm in Elstead, and bird seed.

Fruit and veg are supplied by local growers: local, that is, to Phillip's home in West Wittering, or local to the shop. Phillip reels off a long list of vegetables grown and supplied by Great Hookley Farm: carrots, cabbage, beans, courgettes, broccoli... The displays are supplemented by produce from farms in Chidham, near Wittering, and there are strawberries and raspberries grown on the outskirts of Godalmng.

Amy Lou's delivers boxes of fruit and veg to homes in Godalming and further afield: to Bowlhead Green, Witley and Milford: as well as local pubs including The Dog & Pheasant in Brook and The Three Horseshoes in Thursley.

The shop, incidentally, is named after Phillip's 10-year-old grand-daughter, athough she doesn't work there yet. "She lives in Devon." explains Phillip. "And she's 10. But she will be working here, let me tell you!"

Clearly lovers of fresh, locally-grown fruit and veg can rest assured that the greengrocery tradition in Godalming - complete with a big London welcome - is safe in the hands of the Collins family for at least another generation.

• To order a fruit and veg box for delivery call the shop on 07973 939051.