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| Ancestor Gateway Forum - STAMFORD MEMORIES GATEWAY (Lincolnshire England) used as PRIDE and PREJUDICE FILM SET | New Topic | Search |
| Thread Topic: Dolbys shop/photo added Topic Originator: Audrey Post Date August 25, 2005 @ 5:14 AM |
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| Audrey |
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Photo taken around 1896 by kind permission of Stamford Mercury Double click on photo to go to larger image. then Click on "All Sizes" to go to full screen image. Click on photostream to see all stamfordtown's photos. Click back button on your computer to return to this page I liked Dolbys shop in High Street (where Boots shop is now). You went in the downstairs area and that was stationery, expensive pens etc. etc. The pens were in a glass case and if you wanted to see one, say a Parker, you had to ask to see it and it was placed on a velvet cloth on the top of the case for you to look at. That area was on the left hand side of the shop. The best part of the shop was upstairs. It had a toy shop and nicknacks on one side where you could buy clockwork toys, transfers, etc and the other side of the shop was a long narrow area with a rickety floor where they sold books. We used to go and look round the shop on our way home from school each day. I picked out a wonderful book The Children's Golden Treasury - it had a blue leather binding with the words picked out in gold. I looked at it loads of times and asked for it for my main Christmas present. I once also had a clockwork toy, a motorcyclist on a a motorcycle. Dolbys was owned by Mr John Dolby. He was a very neat man in a dark suit with dark well groomed hair. |
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| James Kudlinski |
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I remember the toy area in particular. It was a real Alladin's cave and the place to buy lego at 2/6d for a small box. I still have a tinplate toy (in its box too!) purchased from Dolbys. It was with sadness that I watched the front of the building being demolished one Thursday on my way home from school some time in 1967/68. Ed: Good that you kept that tinplate toy. Dolbys must have been a wonderworld for loads of Stamford children. |
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| Roger |
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I remember Dolbys very well !!! My father was works manager of the printing side of the business which was situated behind the shop up until it moved to West Street in about 1959. In the 1968 Easter holiday I helped clear the last items from the shop to a small retail stationery shop which was opened at the front of the West Street works. John Dolby was a magistrate and the only brother of the three surviving who went into the family business. He sold the business in about 1979 and lived well into his 80s. My father retired in 1981 and died in 2005. Kate: Thanks Roger. I remember John Dolby was on the Council. His full name was John Dainty Dolby. I suppose the Dainty was a family name - I always remembered it as it was an unusual middle name. |
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| Andrew Matthews |
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It was interesting to read James Kudlinski's memories of seeing the front of Dolby's shop being demolished in 1968. I would have been 4 years old at the time and can remember being in the High Street with my father and seeing the front of the shop all broken down. I remember my father telling me there had been a fire at the shop and that was why it looked in ruins. However, whether that is actually what had happened I don't know. I know I am not confusing this with the big Woodhouses fire as that was in Dec 1964 and I was too young to remember that. Can anyone confirm if a fire at the shop actually led to its final closure? |
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| Roger |
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Whilst they were demolishing Dolbys, the contractors lit a small bonfire to burn some of the rubbish. unfortunately it got out of hand and the fire brigade were called and put the fire out in a matter of minutes. At the time I was working at Lloyds Bank next door. Being lunchtime some of the staff on hearing the fire engine went outside to see what was happening. It was hilarious to read in the "Mercury" that "Lloyds Bank staff had to be evacuated"! |
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| Roger |
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Andrew, I should have added that Dolbys was not demolished because of fire - the shop closed because of falling sales and the expense of maintaining a large half empty buiding as the printing works side of the business (at the rear) had relocated about 9 years earlier. Also by the late 1960s the inside of the shop was looking very dated, gloomy and unappealing and would have cost a lot to refurbish. I may be wrong but I think Dolbys were thinking of closing the shop when Boots approached them as they were looking for a site for a new shop. There definitely was a fire at Woodhouses but I can't remember the year. |
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| Andrew Matthews |
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Thank you Roger for finally getting to the bottom of the Dolby's fire story I remember my father telling me about. Maybe he had read in the Stamford Mercury about the bonfire getting out of hand when the front of the shop was demolished and that's where the story came from. I was only 4 years old at the time so probably I misunderstood what he was telling me. But I can clearly see that image in my mind of the shop front looking all smashed down whilst standing on the opposite side of the road with my father and looking across. |
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| Betty |
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betty May 6, 2010 @ 7:23 PM Edit | Delete (In reply on another topic) Hi Terry No I worked at Dolby's the Printers in the Office and I seem to think you used to come there to see Mr. Dolby. I am sure you will know that Peter Hamitt did become a Doctor. Roger Partridge May 8, 2010 @ 11:37 PM Edit | Delete Hi Betty, you must have known my father, Frank Partridge betty May 9, 2010 @ 9:46 PM Edit | Delete I worked with your father, I did wonder when I saw your name on the Forum whether you were his son, its a small world. I worked with Dorothy Baker (Graham) and Ann Britten (Gibson) Ann Wallace (Chiverton) Albert Barlow and his brother at Dolby's 1959-1961 |
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| Roger Partridge |
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Hi Betty I remember Albert Barlow, and am fairly certain dad mentioned an Ann working there, but don't remember which one |
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