| Editor |
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Bakers shop was opposite the Town Hall, and if you were looking for a shop the same as the one featured in "The Two Ronnies" Bakers was it. They had a row of boxes on the back wall behind the counter, which contained nails, screws, nuts bolts everything you could think of. It was a real old fashioned kind of shop, but everything was there. This was before we started having different types of measurements and weights, so everything was in yards, feet and inches, lbs and ounces. It was a bit easier to work out how many you needed of each item, though we did not have calculators to help do the sums then.
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| john freear |
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Similarly Grimes on St Mary's St. In spite of what looked like hundreds of drawers from floor to nearly ceiling the person serving you always knew where the item you wanted was to be found, just so long as you were able to describe it accurately!!!! In those days ironmongers were very much more than "shop assistants" whatever shop assistants might be!!!
Ed: Thankyou John. We all have the occasion when we are searching for that odd piece of kit to get something mended. Those shops were a boon. We tried all sorts with our clock which had stopped and the hands were bashing into each other as they travelled round the dial. In the end we fixed it with a piece of cardboard! For actual "widget" type articles we still have Harrison & Dunn - whose forerunner, I think was Duncombes in High Street.
Anyone else remember Grimes? I think there were buckets and tin baths outside!
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| Roger |
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Harrison and Dunn were originally in a smallish shop at 10/11 All Saints St, they also had a depot in Hallidays Yard, and a shop in Market Place, Bourne. They had a large brown Bedford van in late 50s/60s, which I believe may have been used as a mobile "shop". I remember seeing it with metal dustbins tied on to the roof! They took over Duncombs in the late 60s, which continued to trade under its own name, until it closed in, I think, the 70s.
They moved into their current premises at No. 3 (formerly Bassendines) in the 70s.
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| Roger |
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I forgot to add that just as Duncombs were taken over by Harrison and Dunn, Bakers were bought out by Ellis and Everard (in the late 1960s?), who already had premises in All Saints Place, Radcliffe Rd (2) and Station Yard. These were all eventualy closed and E and E moved to new premises on part of Martin Markham's old site on Ryhall Rd.
I remember Grimes's having new shiny metal dustbins outside the shop. This business was also taken over, by a well established plumber in the town - George Black. I was at primary school with his son, Ian.
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| Christine Pattinson |
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It is three years since a comment was added to this topic by Roger. He mentions Grimes shop being taken over by George Black. I baby minded George Blacks boys in the early 1950's in the school holidays when he was married to a relation of mine called Gladys. I think he had three sons David and Ian I cannot remember the name of the other boy.About 3 years ago I met someone in Stamford that gave me Glady's address in New Zealand.I Had an old black and white photo of Ian aged about two, which I sent her. She wrote and thanked me and said Ian had died quite young and that she had very few photos of him. I wondered if Roger kept in touch with Ian.
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| Roger Partridge |
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Very sorry to hear about Ian, I last saw him when we both left Bluecoat School in 1961.
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