Tag Archives: High Street

Jean Tiffin: Shops, Glasspool’s High Street, 1960s

 

My first job when I left school was at the Chemist (now Black Rock Insurance ) on the corner of South Street and the High Street.  In the morning the first thing I had to do was to clean the brass – brass door handles and brass scales.

On the wall were big sliding cupboards with alphabetical drawers –  A for Aspirin and R for Rennies. There were lovely glass display cupboards with glass tops, doors to the window displays and two big shaped bottles with green and red liquid in them. The door to the Dispensary was a glass- etched saloon type.

There was a nearly life- size cardboard cut out Kodak girl – we had a new one each year.

Glasspool's photo envelope

Glasspool’s photo envelope

Effie and I served in the shop wearing white ‘Alexandra’ overalls, and Mr Glasspool had a grey coat. We made tea in the dispensary and took it in turn to buy the biscuits.

The medicine bottles were kept in the air raid shelter in the garden and if it rained, water dripped off the light. We had a choice of colours to put with the bath crystals.

We sold Scholl sandals and shoe dye so I used to dye my sandals different colours to make them special. Jean Tiffin nee Ault b 1948

Blanche Kennard: Shops, High Street, and buses 1950s 1970s

Bus in High Street 1970s : photo John Golding

Bus in High Street 1970s : photo John Golding

The buses used to pass so close to the shop door at Higginbothams. One day when I was just paying for something at the counter, I let go of Colin’s hand, – he was only about 3 –  to get my money out, and he ran to the door. It was open and the bus was going past. I just grabbed him in time. Oh, it did give me a scare.
Blanche Kennard nee Dore b 1923

Pauline Harwood, Shops, High Street, Higginbothams 1940s

Mr Higginbotham the draper, he had a wooden leg.  If my grandmother was coming to tea, my Mum used to say, ‘I haven’t got a clean tablecloth. Go up Higgies and get one’, because they weren’t much.  We used to buy underwear up there and all sorts of things.  We used to go in the left to the drapery part, and there would be nobody there. Suddenly you would hear thump, thump, thump as he walked across. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930

 

Advertisement for Higginbothams

Advertisement for Higginbothams

Pat Burt, Annette Haynes, Shops, Higginbothams 1950s

Higginbotham's now Marlborough House, dentists.

Higginbotham’s now Marlborough House, dentist’s.

Then there was Higginbothams shop; half was a drapers and half was a grocers.  He had a wooden leg, Mr Higginbotham the draper, Tim’s grandfather.  I used to go in there and buy cotton. You could buy material, all sorts, it was amazing what they kept in there.   Higginbothams was up the top where the dentist is now, in Marlborough House.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

 

Pauline Hatch, Palma Holloway, Shops, High Street, Westons, 1950s

It was awful if your radio was packing up. W e used to go to Weston’s and get our accumulator. They didn’t charge much and if you were lucky you had two, so you took one out and put the other in.  We used to listen to ‘Take it from Here’ and things like that.
Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930

When our accumulators were charged up at Weston’s shop, they were put on the shelf  waiting to be collected. You had to put your name on them. Palma Ault nee Holloway

Brian Pomroy, Shops: High Street, Westons 1950s

After Harwoods you had Pack and Cullifords, then Malcolm Mallett in Ablitts Butchers. Hopkins had a little café, then Whitewoods, then next door was George Weston. George did everything there, bikes, radios, paraffin. On a Friday we used to carry our batteries to George’s shop to get them charged up so we could listen to ‘Dick Barton Special Agent’ on a Saturday.  We didn’t have electricity, only gas.
Brian Pomroy b 1937

Margaret Lawry: Shops, High Street, Ablitt’s 1960s

Ablitt's the Butchers, High Street

Ablitt’s the Butchers, 1990s photo from Jane Blake

I worked at Ablitts on Saturday mornings and in the summer holidays in the 60s.    Mollie and Malcolm Mallett owned the business. Jim Smith, the butcher, and Phyl Hardy the cashier worked there too.  Jim always used to call you ‘My Gal.’ Vertically next to photo)

I used to cut up meat and make mince in a big mincing machine, and make sausages. Depending on which sausages we were making, I used to cut up various pieces of pork or beef and add secret ingredients and mix it all up by hand in a big metal bowl. With one hand I then put it in the machine and pushed it through with a wooden plunger, and caught it in the skin with my other hand.  I then plaited up the sausages and hoped 8 sausages weighed 1lb.

I used to deliver meat around the town carrying a big wicker basket, and remember a lovely housebound lady always gave me 6d tip.  I also delivered to Longs Wharf and Yew Trees when it was a hotel.  Mollie delivered meat by van out in the country.

Jim used to put sawdust on the butcher’s block at the end of the day and scrub it with a metal brush. That made a lovely noise and it would look like new again.

I always went home with sawdust on my shoes as the floor was covered in it, but Mum was used to it as Dad was a carpenter, and she’d worked in Ablitts when she left school in 1936.
M.S. b 1949

Pauline Hatch, Serena Hunt , Shops, High Street 1940s

Minnie Flint’s – I can remember that as a butcher’s shop. It had great big windows and they used to push them up, and there was the meat on a marble slab.  Mr Haward’ s fish shop was  next door. When I was about three, I used to go across and ask for ‘dish for dabbing’ instead of ‘fish for crabbing’.   For years afterwards whenever I went in for fish, he used to say to me, ‘Do you want some dish for dabbing?’
 Pauline Harwood nee Hatch 1930

Pinings Corner, High Street

Pinings Corner, High Street


I called Mr. Haward ‘Uncle Len’.   One of my cats used to go down the road every day at noon and sit on the wall opposite his shop and Len would give him a piece of fish. Len said he could set his watch on the cat’s arrival. Serena Dias de Deus nee Hunt b 1939

Shops: High Street, Whitewoods, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s

Harry Lee had had what was more or less a department store in the two storey brick building opposite the Police Station.  Godwins, who had a shop in Freshwater, then had it, and were struggling a bit, so my father took over the lease from them in 1951. It was the year of a big Poliomyelitis outbreak and the Daily Mirror carried a headline calling the Island ‘Polio Island’, so no one came for holidays and it nearly finished our business.
Edward Whitewood

High Street, Whitewoods 1970s with Ruth Mills in doorway

High Street, Whitewoods 1970s with Ruth Mills in doorway Photo M. Scott

When I passed the 11 Plus – the scholarship, we bought my uniform from Whitewoods. They stocked our blazers and uniforms for Newport Grammar School.
Diana Broomfield nee Ryall b 1942

Ruth Mills at work at Whitewoods, High Street

Ruth Mills at work at Whitewoods, High Street photo : Ruth Mills