Stories from the store

“With reference to the picture attached to Stanley Gordon’s article about the Gaumont cinema,” emails Angus Lockhart, “the shop on the left of the picture, Audrey’s clothes shop , was where my wife’s mother was manager. It was next door to the cinema, where they held a Saturday morning club for children. You could hear the kids banging their feet with excitement.

“Just past the cinema was the entrance to the Continental Ballroom and next came the Co-operative (SCWS). I worked there for a while in the 1960s in the furniture department, with hardware at one end.

“The gentleman in charge there taught me how to wrap goods in brown paper and string with special knots to make a carrying handle.

“At the other end was a small office and one day, when it was windy, the window got stuck and the ladies from the office asked for my help. I got a ladder and as I climbed it, the window fell in and smashed over my head – no injury was involved.

“The shop also sold gramophones, with one wired through the shop. One assistant brought in Mr Tambourine Man by The Byrds and played it over and over again.

“The shop had a special offer on single bed divans. Two Chinese men came in and bought two of the beds and said they would come back in a month which they did and bought another 12. A week later they were delivered and the address was the ballroom next door. They came on a coal lorry.

“The manager asked me to give the driver a help to carry them upstairs. The ballroom was being converted to a Chinese restaurant.”