Department store which served Cov over half a century

EVERYBODY holds an affection for different parts of the Coventry of the past, many of which have ceased to exist as the city continues to reinvent itself.

One store which was once an institution in the city holds a particularly special place in the hearts of many, whether they made up one of the many workers, or shoppers through its doors.

For youngsters in the city it may have helped epitomise the Christmas season with it’s incredible decorations and myriad displays.

Here we take a look back at Coventry’s lost department store Owen Owen, using archive pictures and interviews from years gone by with former employees.

There was a definite feel of “Are You Being Served?” about Coventry’s old Owen Owen store which sold everything from high fashion to hardware and haberdashery for more than 50 years.

The television sit-com from the 1970s had more than a few echoes of life in the four-floor department store owned by Duncan Norman and his son “Mr John.”

And yes, there had originally been a Mr Owen Owen - he was a Welshman whose daughter had married into the Norman family from Liverpool.

Despite being part of a small chain, local people became fond of the upmarket store. Not least because the first Owen Owen, on the corner of the Burges and Trinity Street, had been bombed along with the rest of the city centre during the 1940 Coventry Blitz.

That first shop offered housewives of the 1930s the unique opportunity of buying everything they wanted all under one roof.

Back in 1937 that was a whole new shopping experience. But not one destined to last.

The store had only been open for two years when the Second World War started in 1939.

A year later, just like the old Cathe

dral nearby, it became an empty smoking shell with outside walls intact, but the roof blasted away.

The replacement store, which officially opened amid huge excitement on October 1, 1954, was just a few yards up the road, in Broadgate.

The new manager was a woman, a Miss Pinnock, who presided over 400 staff working in 100 departments from the basement brooms and buckets to the glories of jewellery, perfume, bedding and baby linen.

Then there were the 12 assistants just to serve ladies stockings.

Speaking to the Telegraph several years ago former advertising manager Bernard Stone, who spent a total of 35 years working for the Owen Owen group - the last 20 in Coventry - said: “There was even a department just for lace curtains as opposed to ordinary curtains.

“I remember when Mr Duncan Norman was chairman.

“Sadly, his elder son Jack was killed during the war and so the younger boy took over who we all called Mr John.

“Looking back it was very much like ‘Are You Being Served’ - when I first started as an apprentice in the retail business in Southampton in 1937 we wore black jackets and pin-striped trousers.

“It would have been just the same in all the Owen Owen stores where staff would have been very well trained. In many cases it might have taken three years before you were allowed to actually serve a customer!

Bernard, then aged 83 and living with his wife Barbara in Faircroft Road, Kenilworth, said: “I still remember my first sale was a reel of red Sylko cotton that cost two-pence!” It was in 1953 that Bernard joined the Owen organisation, which was known nationwide for the splendour of its window displays.

After spending years travelling between all the stores, Bernard finally took a back seat managing Coventry’s furnishing department.

He recalls: “Trade was always up and down in Coventry so we had to keep coming up with new ideas.

“We changed the windows every week and had to keep coming up with ideas like Blue Cross sale days because during the 1960s the car factories in Coventry were always on strike!”

Bernard’s second wife Barbara, aged 60, also worked at the Broadgate store for nearly 30 years after first starting as a “Christmas temp” in 1968.

Barbara said: “I remember what a happy place it was to work.”

This was a sentiment shared by many former workers, including Amelia Wainwright, then aged 85, who remembered spending 23 years at Owen’s, mostly as a ‘mobile’ assistant being called on to help in any floor.

Mrs Wainwright, who lived in Greyfriars Lane in the city centre, said: “I remember the 12 assistants for ladies stockings - there were no tights in those days - and spending three years in haberdashery and stationery.

“We female assistants all had to wear white blouses and black skirts - it was a family firm but quite up-market.

“We also had a good social club and I remember going on some really good works’ outings.”

What are your memories of Coventry’s Owen Owen? Email news@coventry-telegraph.co.uk