SIGN BROUGHT BACK MEMORIES

GRAHAM Jones’ voting leaflet shows him holding a sign saying ‘Hats by La Mode’ which was 67, Abbey Street.

My family lived at 67A Abbey Street from 1938 and I left there when I got married in April 1949.

Our house was behind La Mode down the passage. Our front door was on the left hand side and facing us was a clothes shop’s back door.

That shop is now a dentists and the passage, which was a right of way leading to Pitt Street, is now Eastgate where Morrisons supermarket is. It has railings at both sides but I can see the windows of our two bedrooms that were both at the back of our house if I go that way to the Eastgate shops.

When I lived there, I used to go to Nuttall Bros, an expensive ladies clothes shop on the block where the end shop is now and Argos on.

I went to pay our rent to the lady who either owned or managed it (I am not sure which) and she was the mother of the lady in La Mode hat shop, where I bought my white veiled hat to wear for my wedding in April 1949.

There used to be a wall half a metre high from the front of the shop along the side of it up to the passage and I used to sit on the end of it and watch people walk along Abbey Street. That wall is no longer there.

I could also look down Warner Street and see all the shops there.

One of them, Marsden Leather Goods Shop featured in the Observer (‘“Drastic drop” in trade forces shop to close, May 26), was where we bought our leather shoe laces.

Sad to read that due to a drop in trade it is closing down. I remember it as it was in your pictures.

Both pictures I have mentioned brought back memories of my childhood and teenage years. I was 20 when I got married. Mrs V Rigg Glebe Street Great Harwood