More shops in 1940s wartime Britain and the aftermath

Based on recollections of Edgware, north London in the 1940s.

While I was still too young for school, my mother had to take me with her when she went out shopping. Looking back, I am grateful for the experience, because some shops and much of the shopping process had hardly changed since the early 1900s shopping experience which my mother describes.

There were far more small shops than there are today. There were some chain stores, particularly grocers and tobacconists, but many were owned or run as family businesses. The individuals serving in the shops tended to have to manage the stock, so were kept busy. So they had bells above the shop door which were tripped to ring when triggered by a customer opening the door. These were manual bells, not electric ones, and they made a characteristic 'ting' which alerted whoever was serving.

Bakers

There was only one bakers shop in the group of shops close to Edgware Station which my mother frequented. It was known as Brills, so I suppose it was run by a Brills or Brill family. They did deliver, but nevertheless, the shop did a roaring trade. What I remember more than anything else was that the queues often stretched outside the door and into the street.

Tobacconists

My mother's visits to Lewis the tobacconist were not only to buy cigarettes for my father who, like most men of the time, smoked. She would also buy pipe cleaners in the form of cotton-padded pliable wire which she used to curl up her hair overnight.

 

Department stores

The only department store in Edgware was Stanley J Lee which was owned by the Lee family and, as far as I know, had no branches anywhere but Edgware. The people of Edgware seemed to be rather proud that their town boasted a department store. So it could not have been common.

The department store, Lees as it was called, was on two sites in Station Road: one sold haberdashery, fabrics, underwear, etc and the other sold clothes.

What I remember particularly was how the customers paid. The sales assistant sent each bill and the money in a special container along a cable to a central till. Then the cashier sent back the change the same way. I think that the device was called a flying fox.

Furniture shops

There was only one furniture shop in Edgware, but I don't remember it because it had to close shortly after the beginning of the Second World War because it couldn't get new stock. Presumably some stock was imported and some was made by cabinet makers who had been moved to support the war effort.

The furniture shop in Edgware had been called Oustons, and had been owned and run by the Ouston family. My mother always bemoaned the fact that it had had to close. When she and my father married in 1938, they had used it a great deal to set up our home. Pride of place went to a wooden pendulum clock which had been hand-made by an older member of the Ouston family.

Newsagents

Over time, tobacconists combined with newsagents, but I remember very little about it. I don't think we ever had newspapers, because all the news was on the radio. Also a great treat was to go to the cinema, known as the pictures, and there was always a Pathe News between films. There was a W H Smith shop in the 1950s, and I suppose it was also there in the 1940s. As far as I remember it was essentially a bookshop.

Newspaper sellers who I remember stood outside in the street at places where people would be passing, like the station. They displayed the day's headlines with chalk on a blackboard or inside a billboard frame. The newspapers and magazines were kept in place with lengths of spring, so that they could easily be pulled out for customers. The newspaper sellers called attention to themselves by shouting, "Read all about it! Read all about it".

sweet shops

Our sweet shop was Maynards, a chain store. I remember it from the late 1950s and suppose it was also there earlier. However sweets were rationed until 1953, so it couldn't have done a particularly good trade. It was next to the cinema to capitalise on what seemed to be a normal expectation: that going to 'the pictures', as the cinema was called, was a treat and therefore deserving of sweets.

There is a photograph of the Edgware Maynards on the cinema page.

Ph0tographic studios

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.

The 1940s and 1950s are also written as the 1940's and 1950's.