Shops of yore

M'mm, but electronics development doesn't usually add to volume manufacturing - just jobs in India and China. The old engineering base - aircraft, cars, machine tools - all added a lot to the local manufacturing base, and if we are honest, that's what the country needs, if any sort of prosperity and long term stability is to return. We see the same problem here around Norwich. Boulton & Paul and Laurence Scott have gone, Crane Fruehauf is much reduced. The new CEO of Lotus has been threatening to move production abroad (for which read Malaysia, or maybe into Europe). However, there is an engineering centre at Hethel but it produces little other than designs, so it employs only a small number of people. Norwich used to be a major centre of the printing industry; HMSO was sold off, and has almost vanished; much book printing now is done abroad. The jobs that replace those lost are mainly in the service sector, and many are part-time, the only really large employer now being Aviva (Norwich Union). Any jobs that do exist in engineering are mainly low paid; when you see adverts for skilled machinists and toolmakers advertised at little more than minimum wage, it says a lot, doesn't it? What's the point in getting an apprenticeship if the end result is minimum wage? And while we keep having governments who care not a jot for industries like engineering and proper manufacturing, nothing will change. A very worrying trend for the future, and I am thankful that I'm not trying to start out now. Now, Ireland's: I've been trying to remember where their previous shop was. I've a sneaking suspicion that it was in Warwick Row.

I don't think it was - there was a fine stationer's shop on Warwick Row which my dear old Dad used to frequent, and I've been racking my "brain" trying to member the name of it - without success

I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the centre proper, if you see what I mean. But it was there somewhere when I was a kid, but my little grey cells still refuse to play ball. It may have been, y'know, memory, as we often find out, plays some strange tricks as we get ancient. The other location I first thought of was somewhere around Ironmonger Row/Burges, but I can't recall it there - but I do know what it looked like. If I remember correctly, it had a glossy black fascia, with large chrome letters, in a sort of Deco style (but then, a lot of shops had something of similar ilk in the 50s). In 1905, there was a William Ireland shopkeeper (apparently stationer) in Greyfriars Lane.

Hi Philip I bought a bottle of Parker Quink today. Where do you think that's made? France! Can't we even make INK now? Parker is owned by Newell Rubbermaid - you'd think that was a British firm wouldn't you? The thing that irks me is why should production of something like that be taken to France? After all, the labour can't be cheaper, there, surely? This is so typical of what has happened to so much of our industry.

Hi. Having just downed a Pam steak & kidney pudding & a bottle of wine between us, I am struggling to find the bottom of our stairs at present. What ever you do, don't ever have stairs that bend round half way up. Ours bend twice & I keep getting lost. We only ever lose them after a glass of wine. I do remember a stationers in Greyfriars lane but I thought that was Bennets who moved to Far Gosford St.

Maybe when our little grey cells have been lubricated over Xmas, we'll all remember where it was.

1955 GPO Telephone Directory has : A. Ireland (Stationers) Ltd Barras Lane Cov 3339 57 Corporation Street Cov 3936 also at Regent Street, Leamington Spa

Ah, thanks! It's probably the Barras Lane one that I can remember. I don't know why, but I can't remember the Corporation St one - maybe it was in one of the temporary shops? And now I've got the little grey cells into gear a bit more, yes, it was definitely the Barras Lane shop that I remember - it wasn't far from the traffic lights in Spon St/Spon End if I'm not mistaken. My first bike came from a shop in Spon End, near Barras Lane junction! (And I just looked out of the window, to notice that it's snowing out there... Brrrrr! Winter draw(er)s on, as they say!)

Here's another one, then In the 60s one of the city's "big shots" was Christopher Bee, who had a photographic business in the city centre Seemed to disappear as quickly as he arrived Any thoughts / memories ?

I think so. If I'm remembering it rightly, he had a shop right at the top of Hertford St, tucked in the corner in behind the National Provincial Bank building. It was a rather narrow, poky frontage, with a tapered display cabinet in the entrance, that you could pass on either side - but I think Bee's entrance was only on the Bank side. I've a vague recollection of buying a lens there in the 60s. I didn't keep that long, either! There was another (quite good) photographic shop at Tile Hill Pharmacy, which finished in the 70s. I still have a Fujica half-frame camera that I bought there in 1965 or 6. And yet another good one in Stoney Stanton Road, which is where I bought the Pentax S1 that I still own, in 1963. Can't remember what it was called, though. It wasn't far beyond the hospital on the same side.

I'm sure it was in the Lower Precinct

Pretty certain it wasn't Bee's. I don't recall any camera shops in the Lower Precinct, and in the 60s I was buying quite a lot of camera kit. I think Dixons appeared around the late-ish 60s and their shop was the only one I remember being in the Precinct area at all; I think it was close to Woolies - I bought a tripod from them about that time (and rubbish it was too!). The others were all small businesses, and it's doubtful if they could have afforded the rates in the Precinct or Market Way. A lot of them didn't last very long even out of the city centre. You said Bee was a 'big shot' - how? Did he own other businesses?

Smithford Way, on the corner of Marks & Sparks and the shortcut to West Orchard/Ironmonger Row.

Found it ! GPO Telephone Directory 1962/3, Christopher J Bee, 64 The Precinct - that's the Lower Precinct Wondering what happened to the business As Dutchman says, Dixons was along the side of M&S in Smithford Way

The shop behind the NP bank had one window full of second-hand cameras, and only a few new ones in the other display window. It was one of very few 'serious' camera shops, but wasn't there for very long. Greens at the other end of Hertford St also sold cameras in the 60s (and earlier, of course) but only pretty cheap types - what we'd consider mass-market today, rather than enthusiast models. A lot of chemists sold cheap cameras in the 50s and 60s, but I doubt they had good sales, since a lot of them gave up by the 70s. Most chemists, however, sold and processed films, and as we all know, some still do. A few chemists tried selling enthusiast cameras, which entailed part-exchanging, so had a number of second-hand cameras, but they probably didn't do well with that at all.