Price is right? Closer look at cost of living
WITH inflation romping away and the cost of living crisis gathering momentum, let’s snatch a glimpse of the prices we, or maybe our parents/grandparents, paid in 1950, courtesy of The Citizen and Gloucester Journal.
Return rail fares from Gloucester to Cheltenham were 1/-, to Bourton on the Water 3/3d, Ledbury 2/5d, London 15/-, Swindon 4/6d and Cardiff 11/6d.
For comparison, an anytime return ticket to Paddington today is £195 depending, as is the way with train fares, on wind direction, if there’s an R in the month and what the person in the ticket office had for breakfast.
Your choice of second-hand cars offered for sale included a 1948 Austin A40 Devon, 5,200 miles on the clock, for £895. A Hillman Minx 10 saloon of the same year was priced at £695. Meanwhile caravans from Brain’s Garage in Kingsholm Road started at £198.
New cars were pretty well unobtainable in this country after the Second World War, because motor manufacturers were required to export as much of their production as possible. Consequently used car prices were high, as this selection taken from the for sale columns illustrates.
A 1947 Sunbeam Talbot 10hp sports saloon was offered at £795.
A 1933 Austin 10 could have been yours for £150, or a 1939 Standard 8 saloon for £325. A 1938 Ford 8 was priced at £295, while a 1934 Riley Monaco seemed a comparative bargain at £185.
For the sporty (and affluent) a Singer Le Mans carried a price tag of £225. Bottom of the range came a 1936 Raleigh 7hp three wheeler for £45.
If you were looking for a job, the Gloucester Shirt Company had vacancies for skilled and semi-skilled sewing machinists, full or part-time, applications to the Magdala Road factory.
Bubb’s ladies’ hair salon in Northgate Street had a special offer on perms at 25 shillings. Feather pillows from Hampshire Furnishings in Westgate Street were 9/1d, while utility pillow cases from Dentons in Northgate Street were 5/5d.
Electrical appliances were more expensive in real terms in the 1950s than they are now. A Sobellette radio from Midland Electricity in Commercial Road would set you back a whopping £8/19/6d, about £320 in today’s terms.
And in the event of a happy event, prams at Matthews & Harris at Barton Gates ranged enormously in price from £2 to £17/2/10.
A housebuilding boom was underway in Gloucester in the early 1960s. At Glenville Gardens, Hucclecote, threebedroom semis were for sale at £3,175, with two-bed bungalows priced at £3,360.
In Longlevens, new bungalows and houses in Breinton Way ranged from £2,300 to £2,700, while the two- and three-bedroom houses rising on the Holmwood estate, Grange Road, Tuffley, were in the £2,860 to £3,010 bracket.
A new home in Brooklands Gardens, Innsworth Lane cost between £2,800 and £3,350.
Half a dozen three-bedroom semis in Blacksmith Lane, Churchdown were on the market at £2,950 and not far away in Pittmill Gardens at the foot of Chosen Hill a new property could be yours for £2,650.
In October 1963 Gloucester auto dealers got together to organise a local motor show. If you were in the market for a Vauxhall, the London Road garage of Hugh and Whitmore offered a full selection of the Lutonmade marque.
New prices were for the one-litre, four-seater Viva £527, the 1.6-litre Victor £635, the six-cylinder Velox £840 and top of the range was the Cresta at £943.
Chambers Motors of Barnwood was also a Vauxhall dealer, while the St Aldate Garage in Northgate Street specialised in Austins.
Taylor’s Crypt House Motors was the city’s main Rootes dealer and on display in the showroom was the Hillman Imp at £508/1/3 and the Super Minx at £743.
A Sunbeam Rapier could be yours for £876, or the more sporty Alpine for £899.
If you were looking for refinement and luxury, a Humber Sceptre at £997 fitted the bill, or even more upmarket, the Humber Super Snipe, yours for £1,353.
Just to remind ourselves of inflation’s steady march, here’s a selection of cars that stood for sale on the forecourt of
Moon’s, London Road in May 1970. A new Hillman Avenger was yours on the road for £766. The cheapest car advertised was an Austin A35 “reliable starter” at £40. For £425 you could have driven away a Triumph Herald convertible, or a Ford Anglia (the car with the inward slanting rear windscreen) for £235. The most expensive used car offered was a Ford Corsair automatic at £985.
In 1970, when the average weekly wage was £32, a loaf of Sunblest bread, baked in Gloucester by A H Palmer (Westons) Ltd, cost 9p. Petrol was 33p a gallon – it’s now around £8.60 a gallon – and the average annual household electricity bill was £11.