Owen Owen

Hi Dutchman, Seeing your picture of the marquee, I distinctly remember going in a marquee to view the whale that was on display, you had to enter one end, view the whale and walk through and exit the other end. I am sure it was on Trinity Street, a few of us girls went to see the exhibit one day after school. It would have been about that year.

What did it smell like? Ref. Para Handy, he organised trips to see an abandoned whale - until complaints to the authorities, told him to remove it - he bailed out. Funny that story, proves truth can be stranger than fiction. Oh! Para Handy (author Hugo Foulis) in my opinion the greatest ship`s master who never sailed the seven seas!

What did it smell like? If I remember correctly, it did not smell fishy but more like something old and rank. It was looking a bit tatty due to all the places it had been on show I expect. I know we only had to pay a 'tanner' to go in. I would probably feel sorry for it these days. I could go on about whales but I won't. I had doubts for ages as to whether it was real or not. I remember Owen Owen there too.

A different view of Owen Owen

Another good one Anne, thank you for showing. I remember that scene so well. Would that have been in the 50's?

Yes, I think it would be the 50's, after the war but before the new store was built. I don't remember it like this. I used to like Owen Owen but I remember it was always very hot in there.

I have a picture which I took in the mid 50`s of the shop in the mock tudor building. That shop was, by then, occupied by H Samuel. Also, the shop on the LHS of the top of New Buildings was completely different to the one shown and was not Owen Owens. I would guess that this picture was probably taken in 1939 or 40 immediately before the blitz and just after their first new store was opened (the one that was bombed).

It was taken after they were bombed so any time between 1940 and 1954. My guess is late 1940s. You can see from this photo that Trinity Buildings and Timothy Whites hadn't yet been built on the day that the pre-war store opened:

This photo shows Owen Owen in the building on the left which became Alice Middleton's shop at 2 Ironmonger Row - and it raises a question about the 1955 photo of the area on the 'Shops of Yore' thread, since the Telephone Directories show her shop to be at 3 Trinity Street immediately after the war and right up to the 1960 edition, then in 1962 it changes to 2 Ironmonger Row

I believe it's the other side of Trinity Street from Alice Middleton's MR? The window pattern is completely different.

I must admit I was confused about the perspective of my original picture and thought the building on the left was Ironmonger Row. A snap of google map shows it is on the other side of Trinity Street.

Gotcha!

Official opening of new store, 1 Oct 1954 Advertisement Photograph

As a young lad, I used to walk into town after school every Friday, to meet my mum and help her with the shopping. We always went to Owen's café before getting the bus home. Mum would have a cuppa and a fag, and I usually had a plate of chips. They did good chips. Out of the window, you could see a forest of big cranes as Coventry's post war skyscrapers were being built. One of the other stores (Liverpool...?) allegedly had huge amounts of stock transferred from Coventry, but failed to pay the bill. The header in the newspaper article, allegedly, was "Owen Owen owin' Owen Owen". Allegedly.

Neils Yard, I suppose you know that building was only there about 4 years, and the other one was built a little higher up Broadgate. Regards, Kaga.