A Fifties Childhood: Shops

Fifties Childhood - Memories

In Cromwell Road, on the corner of Portland Road, was Mr. Nickerson’s shop. The shop window was always full of bottles of every variety of sweets that you could think of, including one of my favourite “Rainbow Kali”. You would buy it in a little cone shaped bag with a stick of liquorice to dip into it. There were boxes of liquorice pipes, pinwheels, black jacks, halfpenny chews, barley sugar twists, Spangles (in various flavours) and another favourite, sweet cigarettes (now politically correctly called candy sticks, although I puffed away at them regularly but was never tempted to try the real thing).Red liquorice comfits were used to paint your lips before being eaten and frozen Jubblies (an orange drink in a triangular carton) were the highlight of a summer’s day. Dad always kept mints in his work coat pocket and so I was regularly sent round the shop to get either light or dark stripes. (Dad started sucking mints after he stopped smoking) On Friday all the men at the shoe factory took in sweets and so Dad always had either Merry Maid Chocolate toffees (a delicious sweet wrapped in shiny paper depicting a smiling milk maid along with a cow in the background) or Raspberry Ruffles (a raspberry and coconut centre wrapped in dark chocolate).

Most shops didn’t open on Good Friday, but Mr. Nickerson would take orders for Hot Cross Buns on Maundy Thursday and you would pay for them so that he would not be trading on Good Friday. He would then open up the shop very early on Friday, for about an hour, so that you could take delivery of them. What a treat they were, still hot from the bake-house, sticky and plump and not squashed up in a tight bag as they frequently are now. This was the only time of the year that you could buy them and so were a very special treat.

Further round the corner in Portland Road was Jack Cox’s shop. This was an Off-licence or “outdoor beer house” as it was commonly known. Jack could open on Sunday for a few hours and so this is where we went if we needed anything. He also ran a little library where you could borrow Romances and Westerns.

Mr. Shorthand owned a shop on the corner of King’s Road and Portland Road but we only ventured there if the other two shops hadn’t the items that we needed.

At the top of Cromwell Road was a little tiny shop run by Mrs. Summerfield. This was a favourite with all the children at Newton Road School . Only two people were allowed in the shop at a time as this was all the room there was inside. A favourite sweet of the time was a  Whizzer. This was a square sweet with two holes in and a string passing through the holes. You wound up the string and then pulled, making the sweet spin round with a humming noise. Another favourite was a long liquorice tube which had a little basket on the end. There was a little ball and by blowing down the tube you could make the ball dance over the basket. There were also sweet whistles and candy necklaces.

On the corner of Rectory Road and Queen Street was a Co-op grocery store. Each week Mum would pop a little red book, listing her requirements, into the shop during the week and her groceries would be delivered on Friday. The manager knew all his customers and spoke to them by name. Most people shopped regularly at the Co-op in order to collect their “Divi” twice a year. Every time you shopped in a Co-op shop the amount spent was recorded along with your Co-op number. Ours was 4591.A dividend was then paid, twice a year, according to the amount that you had spent. Later on there was a new self-service Co-op in Upper Queen Street . How lucky we were to have so many shops near to our house. How they ever made a living is hard to imagine.

We also had delivery people calling at the house. Arthur Beeby , who kept a little fruit and vegetable shop on the corner of Blinco Road , came round in a van with a selection of fruit and vegetables. Mrs. Timpson, our next door neighbour regularly had vegetables from him but, as we had an allotment, we only had things such as gooseberries which Dad didn’t grow. Milk was delivered daily by Geoff Abbott (a local milkman who ran a family business from home at the corner of Queen Street and Rectory Road.

Although Dad mended most of our shoes himself sometimes Mum’s best shoes were taken to Mr. Shortland’s cobbler’s shop which was in Rectory Road opposite the Co-op Shoe Factory. I used to enjoy watching Dad mend the shoes, fascinated at the way he held the tacks between his teeth as he hammered away at the shoes on the last. To finish off he melted a wax stick on the gas stove, before running it round the edge of the repair to give it a professional finish. In the heels of his shoes he always hammered studs to make the repair last longer. They made a crunching sound as he walked along the pavement. How I longed to have studs in my shoes!

Furniture was bought from the Co-op furniture shop which was located at the bottom of Higham Hill. It was a large store with all the furniture set out upstairs. Mr. Hannaford was the manager and again he knew his customers by name, and spent time taking them round and helping them to find just the piece they wanted.

At Christmas the Co-op had a special toy department where you could go upstairs to view all the toys on sale for Christmas. You walked round and round this huge room, looking at the toys and deciding what you would like Father Christmas to bring you this year. After you had decided, one of your parents went out of the hall to a little office to “order it from Father Christmas”. In fact they paid for it and the Co-op kept it in store for you to collect just before Christmas.

Nowadays when you go shopping the assistant only seems to be there to take your money, leaving you to sort out the items that you would like to buy, but in the Fifties an assistant always helped you to select your purchases. In all the shops there were assistants on every counter and they were there to try to encourage you to buy and help you find the exact item you wanted. Sometimes you weren’t sure what it was that you were after but they were there to find it for you. Some shops were real “Aladdin’s Caves”. A favourite was “Peacock’s Penny Bazaar” (formerly Hooton’s Penny Bazaar). Although not everything was a penny, it was an enticing store where toys, books, games and “nick-knacks” could be purchased with your pocket money. The counters were set out on both sides of the shop and an eagle-eyed shop assistant watched as you moved along looking but NOT TOUCHING the items on sale. If you wanted to look at something you had to ask the assistant who would display it for you pointing out all its good points. It often took a long time to choose what to buy. One lady shop assistant who worked there was very tall and was probably the tallest lady in Rushden in the Fifties, probably six feet, which then was very tall for men and even more unusual for a woman. Everyone knew her. The floor in Peacocks sloped upwards to the back of the shop and so if she was serving at the back end she looked even taller.

Another shop, that we frequented about twice a year to buy either a spring or winter outfit, was “Roses Fashion” which stood where the restaurant of “The Feathers” now stands. This was a grand fashion shop and supervised by a lady with a foreign accent (maybe Austrian). She was most polite and by gentle questioning would find out the kind of thing you were looking for then search through her rack of clothes, bringing out the latest fashions, displaying them and discussing the different colours. One year I had a costume (this is what we would now call a suit) with a little boxy jacket and pleated skirt in a pretty apple green. A pastel yellow seersucker blouse completed the outfit. My friend Margaret had a similar suit in lilac.

On Sunday ladies and girls wore hats and so another interesting shop was “ Elizabeth ’s Hat Shop” which was located to the right of the Independent Wesleyan Chapel. Elizabeth was a posh little lady who kept the hats in deep drawers in tall chests. After explaining the sort of hat required, she scurried around opening drawers and bringing out something suitable. You had great fun sitting in front of the large mirrors, trying them on and admiring yourself until you could decide which was the most attractive.

On the left hand side of the chapel was “The Louvre”. I have no idea why it had such an exotic name but it was a little treasure trove of a shop. It was the ultimate in old-fashioned haberdashers. It was owned by an old lady and gentleman (or at least that is how they seemed to me, but they were there for years and years and so unless they were still trading at about a hundred they couldn’t have been that old. But then everyone over twenty-five looked old in the fifties).The shop was heaving with goods but they knew where everything was, sometimes having to remove a pile of tea-towels or towels to find the aprons or flannels that you wanted. Things hung from the ceiling on racks. Buttons of every shape, colour and size were sewn on cards in sixes and kept in boxes behind the counter all labelled according to the contents. Lace and ribbon was sorted according to width, colour etc. and wound on cards. It sometimes took a long time to get served as it was a long process to find the exact shape, size, colour etc of the goods. The shop was very small and so much of the space was taken up with goods that you couldn’t get more than about three customers in at one time. Sometimes, if you couldn’t get in the door, you went away and came back later. This was quite common when shopping, as self-service shops were few and far between and so you got used to waiting. Today we moan if we have to wait a few minutes at the check-out, but in those days waiting was a usual occurrence.

There were grocery shops with exotic sounding names of “Home and Colonial”, “The Maypole” and “Liptons”. When you bought biscuits they weren’t already packaged up as they are today but came in large tins with a glass panel in the top so that you could see which variety was in them. These tins were arranged where the queue assembled so that you could admire them and be tempted to buy as you waited to be served. You could buy bags of broken biscuits which were an assortment of all the odd bits in the bottom of the tins. Bacon was cut on a vicious looking slicer, as required, and cheese cut from large blocks with a cheese wire. When pork was cooked the drippings from the meat were caught in a tray and allowed to cool, making “Pork Dripping” which was very delicious on crusts of bread. Of course, today, it is bad for the cholesterol and so not very often bought anymore.

Norman ’s Bakery had a tea shop upstairs where you could have a cup of tea and a cake. This was a real treat and the waitress bought a cake stand to the table with a selection of their finest cakes on it.

Shoe shops were “Timpsons”, “Freeman Hardy and Willis” and “Co-op”. Again you had to wait for the assistant who climbed up and down a little pair of steps, unless they were very tall, to get the boxes of shoes down. Shop assistants were very patient and took as much time as necessary to try to clinch a sale. You never felt rushed or uncomfortable if you didn’t like any of the shoes that they showed you. At the “Co-op” they had an X-Ray machine that you poked your feet in so that the assistant could check that you had the correct size and that the bones in your toes were not crowded. Eventually this was discarded as it was found to be dangerous if you were exposed to too many X-rays.

Two other shops that we sometimes went to were “Flavell Hart” and “House of Fashion”. One of Mum’s friends worked in “House of Fashion” on the nylons counter. Unlike today when one size fits all, nylons (stockings) came in a great variety of sizes, colours and denier (thickness). 10 denier was very fine and kept for best occasions, but great care had to be taken when putting them on as they easily laddered. When I first started to wear stockings they had a seam up the back and it was very difficult to get them straight. We seemed to spend a lot of time asking “Are my seams straight” or someone would come up and whisper “Your seams aren’t straight” and you would dash off to the cloakroom to adjust them.  

Choosing wall paper for my bedroom was great fun as we went to the Crown Wallpaper shop which was opposite the chapel. They had a variety of wallpaper books depending on the type of paper you needed – kitchen, living room, bedroom etc. You were allowed to borrow one of the books to take home so that you could browse through them and hold the chosen paper up to the wall to see if you thought it would be suitable. Lots of family discussion took place before the final decision was made and the book returned to the shop with the order for the paper you had chosen.

We ordered our weekly newspapers from Reg Skinner’s Newsagents in the High Street opposite Coffee Tavern Lane . Reg’s shop was long and thin and the top end was taken up with sweets and the ice cream counter. At the bottom of the shop was a huge table (it could have been several tables put together) all spread out with the paper orders in alphabetical order. I had to ask for “Keech – Queen Street ” and Mrs. Skinner, a little lady with black hair pulled off her face and pencilled in eyebrows, would sort through the table to find our order. I had “Girl” comic, the boys “The Eagle” and Mum had “Woman” and “Woman’s Realm”. Dad had “the Daily Herald” delivered every day, and “The People” delivered on Sunday. On Saturday Dad bought a copy of “The Pink’un” from Freddie Harris who for many years, come rain or shine, sold them , “The Evening Telegraph” and “The Echo and Argus” from his pitch outside “The Rose and Crown”. Dad used his “Pink’un” to record the football results. Every Saturday at five o’clock everyone fell silent and daren’t breathe or make a noise as Dad meticulously recorded all the results. They were only read out once and so woe betide anyone who spoke or made a noise while he was recording them. The only noise would be when Dad sucked through his teeth at an unexpected result. You could almost heave a sigh of relief when you heard “Scottish League Division Two” as you knew that the results were nearly finished.

Mum always went to “Helen Buttlings” hairdressers in Church Street . The shop was divided into little cubicles surrounded by curtains. One side of the shop had cubicles with the wash basins and the other side mirrors and chairs for combing out. The curtains were always pulled across to ensure that there was privacy for the clients. I was always interested to watch the hairdressers as they used a variety of equipment to obtain startling results. Perms could be a very long process depending upon the type of perm you had. Mum always had a pin perm where the hair was curled round and held with a silver clip. However there was one very large piece of equipment that looked like something out of a spaceship. It was very large and had big clips – like bull-dog clips- all over it. This was plugged in and heated up. The clips were then, somehow, placed in the hair. I was desperate to see how this worked and so one day when I noticed the machine being wheeled into the next cubicle to us I inched nearer and nearer to the curtain dividing the two cubicles and then as I leant against the curtain it opened and I could see the lady with the clips all over her head (Not a pretty sight). Mum was very cross with me and told me to move away from the curtains and behave myself, but at least my curiosity was quenched.

When I got older I had a Friday night/Saturday morning job at Thomas’s Hairdressers, shampooing hair, sweeping up and holding pins for the stylists. One of the jobs was making shampoo. This was made from thick sticky yellow STUFF. You had to get a big lump and break it into a large bucket then add water and squeeze the lumps of goo until it became smooth. It went all up your arms and was a job to be avoided if at all possible. Hair lacquer was another sticky job. There were no spray cans and so you had a little squeezy bottle with a nozzle on the top. You squeezed away and sticky lacquer sprayed out, often in your eyes if you weren’t careful or the bottle was getting a bit old. When it dried on your hair it set solidly and the hair never moved until you brushed it out at the end of the day. The lacquer dried on the outside of the bottle and you could pull it off – a bit like PVA glue. You had to take your bottle to the hairdressers to get it filled up. Another messy job for the juniors!

Mum was quite handy with a sewing machine and we often went to “Phillips” to buy dress or curtain material. They had large books, showing the latest fashions, that you could choose your patterns from and rolls of material, shelved by colour. The assistant would hold up the materials so that you could get an idea of how they would look when you had finished you garment. Material was measured against the long brass ruler attached to the edge of the counter.

Mum also enjoyed knitting and was always making jumpers and cardigans for us all. She was a very accomplished knitter and tackled even the most complicated Aran patterns. We bought wool from a little shop next to “Rose’s Fashion” but I can’t remember its official name as we always called it the “wool shop”. Wool was bought in skeins not ready wound as it is now and so a chore was winding it into balls before you could start knitting. “Help me with this wool” Mum would say, and reluctantly I had to hold out my hands as she looped the skeins over them and wound the wool.

Mr. Jackson had a tiny shop on the right hand side of the High Street just past the Co-op chemist. He sold tomatoes that he grew himself, plus other vegetables that were in season. He also supplied seed potatoes and onion sets for the gardener. His shop had an earthy, dusty smell (not unpleasant) reminiscent of my Dad’s shed at the allotments. Often there were bunches of flowers to buy – sweet williams, pinks, sweet peas, chrysanthemums and dahlias.

One of the shops that my brother, Richard, visited was Miss Clipson’s toy shop on the corner of Church Street and Alfred Street . He was particularly interested in Dinky Toys and saved his pocket money to buy the latest ones as they came in. Miss Clipson always displayed the new models in the window to entice the customer in.

There were three cinemas in the town, “The Ritz”, where Mum performed in the Operatic Society, “The Palace” and The Royal Theatre.” I frequently went to “The Ritz” cinema with Mum and Dad but I can only really remember one film about “Anastasia”. I think Ingrid Bergman was in it and she was standing up against a brick wall, wearing a belted mac and saying “I am the Princess Anastasia”. I remember this as at the time I thought to myself “Well you don’t look like a princess!” I never went into the “Palace”, but often frequented “The Royal Theatre” or the “Theatre” as we called it (Pronounced “The-et –re with the emphasis on the second syllable). They had Saturday morning shows for children and so I often went there. During my time at Newton Road School , the film “The Ten Commandments”, starring Charleton Heston came out, and we went, as a class, to see a special performance that had been put on for schools. What sticks in my memory of this film? – Charleton Heston at the top of Mount Sinai, mist swirling round his head, fire “writing” the commandments on tablets of stone, dramatic music playing in the background. 

Fifties Childhood - Memories