Wartime housing and shops

Well done Anne. I think that that newspaper confirms the date of the shop. It could still be that the photo was created to give the best possible advertising image effect, say a model in a special outfit. Seems to me that I have seen actresses dressed like the lady in the photo in 1930s films.

There are quite a few adverts in the newspapers for that year for smart clothes like that and as I said my grandmother remarried in 1941, looking quite smart with a strange looking fur thing over her arm and a fancy hat. Possibly clothes made to do but I still think that women liked to look nice to cheer themselves up. The lady could have been a model for the picture, but I would imagine any female staff in the shop would have been pretty well dressed as well. It had got to be 1941 as the shop was only in Corporation Street for that short period.

Anne, "the strange looking fur thing over her arm" sounds like a fox-fur which would then still have been a fashion item.

Annewiggy, The older women wore what looked like a thick scarf but fur; young teenage girls wore, I think it was called, a 'stole', this fitted over the shoulders the same as a coat but came down and just covered the bust. My sister had one until she went in the forces. Real hand warmers, but they took a lot of coupons so families had to rally round - weddings, it was everyone's clothing book on the table, and snip snip. In 1939 like everyone else the clothing firms had to turn to wartime and uniforms etc. But look back, tons of clothes got burnt or destroyed in the bombing, so all towns were in short supply 1941 time for some time. Stockings were none existent, so women painted seams on the back of the legs. Anne, you have the back papers, I think April 1941 was cold wet and miserable? Everyone helping at the hospital bombing that April wore an overcoat.

I hadn't appreciated before that while the fronts of the temporary shops were oblong the shops were domed.

Helen, I think the temporary shops are Nissan huts. They are the right shape and I would think that at that time they would have been available. Could be why they were able to put up the shops so quickly, with a false front.

I couldn't name them Anne but yes, it's that type of hut.

It's the result of having a husband interested in aviation, Helen. We went through a stage when we could not pass an airbase without going down lanes to see what we could see so consequently learned a lot of uninteresting facts. I am sure we must be on a list of suspicious characters loitering outside bases. Thank goodness he changed on to steam trains. I find a trip on a steam train a lot more relaxing.

They even have a website. Edited by Midland Red, 27th May 2021 9:57 am (Link clarified )

I wonder if the Nissen huts would compensate for Covid quarantine quarters saving the taxpayer the expense of hotels. Having said that they must have their drawbacks.

A Nissen hut was home to my parents-in-law for three years after my father-in-law returned from service, in Burma, in 1946.

The bases were still lying on a site in Winsford Avenue in 1962. I used to pass them on the way to the Welfare Clinic with my new born (at the back of the shops).

I was born in a pre fab just off Glendower Ave in the late 40s. When I was 5 we moved to a new council house in Tile Hill. Dad was ex-navy having returned home from the Pacific in 1946/7, he was convinced returning servicemen were given priority with regard to council housing. I wonder if this is true.

But of course, who else deserved them more.