HAVING fruit in the house when you weren't ill was a real sign that you were posh, reckoned Bobby Thompson. Now the Government is considering giving every child a piece of fruit a day and we're all encouraged to eat a lot more of it.

An apple a day really does help to keep the doctor away. Short-term and long-term, we're discovering ever-increasing benefits of eating lots of fresh fruit.

But where do you buy it? And how much does it cost? Your choice is getting more limited.

Since we last checked fruit and veg prices in town centres, we seem to have lost a number of greengrocers. Like grocers, butchers, bakers and petrol stations, they are a vanishing breed. Markets are still going fairly strong, but that still gives you only two days a week to stock up.

And if you need any fruit and veg on other days, you could soon find your only choice is the supermarket.

Considering how cheaply supermarkets manage to sell baked beans and bread, it's surprising how expensive fruit and veg are. They are all nearly always more expensive than markets and usually more expensive than High Street greengrocers.

We went shopping for a fairly modest collection of fruit - a kilo of apples, a kilo of pears, a kilo of bananas , four oranges and half a kilo of grapes. Sounds a lot but it would only give a family of four not much more than one piece of fruit a day. So those extra pennies can mount up very quickly.

We bought our fruit in each of the major supermarkets then, in the same day, bought the same in the local town, using a mixture of markets and local shops.

Wherever possible we've compared like with like for quality and taken TYPICAL prices at the best quality. So we've ignored the bananas at 20p a pound in Bishop Auckland, because although they were incredibly cheap, they were also incredibly black and we didn't want them. We also ignored the most expensive fruit - including Pink Lady apples at Safeway in Barnard Castle - at £3.14 a kilo we reckoned we could find something a lot cheaper and jut as nice (We did - the Granny Smiths)

We've given a rough idea of the extra it would cost you each week. But remember, that's without any real bargain hunting. With a bit of effort, you could save a lot more.

And beware - there's still a lot of confusion between pounds and kilos. And it's not just the stall holders who are at fault.

DARLINGTON: Asda

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Cox apples £1.58 per kg, Conference pears £1.67 per kg, oranges 22p each, grapes £2.18 per kg.

Indoor Market

Bananas 77p per kg, Cox apples 86p per kg, Conference pears £1.52 per kg, large oranges four for 99p, grapes £2.34 per kg.

What it costs: Asda £6.50. Town £5.31

Asda has a good supermarket range, but with all the stalls on the indoor market, you have excellent choice and quality and often at bargain prices.

RICHMOND: Co-op

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Braeburn apples £1.29 per kg, Conference pears £1.89 per kg, large oranges 29p each, grapes £2.49 per kg

Town and market

Bananas 99p per kg, Braeburn apples 99p per kg, Conference pears £1.32 per kg, grapes £1.70 per kg, oranges 20p

What it costs: Co-op £6.62; Town: £4.95

The Co-op has a good range of fruit and veg, including pre-prepared and exotics. Market stalls offer wide range and everything looked wonderfully fresh and glossy last Saturday morning. There was also a farmers' market on in the town, so there was a larger choice of organic veg.

BISHOP AUCKLAND, Morrison's

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Gala apples £1.19 per kg, Conference pears per £1.89 kg, oranges 22p each, grapes £2.18 per kg.

Town and market

Bananas 45p per lb, Gala apples 35p per lb, Conference pears 45p per lb, three oranges for 50p, grapes 80p per lb

What it costs: Morrison's £6.18. Town £4.21

Prices in the town and market were much cheaper than at Morrison's, but choice was much more limited too. Morrison's had a much wider range of fruit and veg on offer and consistently offered very high quality. Market stalls here still work primarily in lbs, with prices in kilos, if at all, in very titchy print.

BARNARD CASTLE: Safeway

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Granny Smith apples £1.25 per kg, Conference pears £1.78 per kg, oranges 22p each, grapes £2.18 per kg

Market/Town

Bananas 77p per kg, Granny Smith apples 77p per kg, Conference pears £1.50 per kg, four oranges £1, grapes 80p for 2lb

What it costs: Safeway £6.13. Town: £4.92

Although only small, this Safeway greengrocery carried a surprisingly large range. The market was cheaper but more limited and this was another place where market stall holders work principally in lbs.

DURHAM: Sainsbury's

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Granny Smith apples £1.19 per kg, Conference pears £1.79 per kg, four large oranges £1.59, grapes £2.99 per kg

Town/Market

Bananas 86p per kg, Granny Smith apples 88p per kg, Conference pears £1.52 per kg, four large oranges for £1, grapes £2.30 per kg

What it costs: Sainsburys £7.15. Town £5.36

The fruit and veg department of Sainsburys is about the size of a small supermarket on its own. Just about everything you could think of - at a price.

Northallerton: Tesco

Bananas £1.08 per kg, Braeburn apples £1.19 per kg, Conference pears £1.67 per kg, four large oranges £1.69, grapes £1.98 per kg

Town /Market

Bananas 99p per kg, Braeburn apples 99p per kg, Conference pears £1.32 per kg, four large oranges £1, grapes £2.18 per kg

What it costs: Tesco £6.62. Town: £5.29

The people of Northallerton are blessed indeed and the least likely in the region to get scurvy. It has good greengrocer shops and it has supermarkets with huge fruit and veg departments - Tesco's is very impressive. It also has markets twice a week with lots of stall holders offering really top quality produce as well as a wide range of local and exotic fruit and veg. If only other towns had this choice, how much easier it would be to eat healthily. Our major complaint against Tesco is one of confusion. They use both pounds and kilos on their big pricing tickets, but sometimes the lb prices are in large print and sometimes the kilo prices are. This might not be deliberately sneaky, but it's jolly confusing.

Supermarket prices and the towns they were in were each surveyed on the same day. But we looked at different towns on different days so prices between towns aren't strictly comparable.

So, the moral of the story is... We've lost our corner shops, we've lost our local bakers and butchers. If we're not careful, we're going to lose our greengrocers too. We need to eat a lot more fruit. Will you be able to afford supermarket prices?