‘Proper posh’ Doggarts was a family favourite
IT WAS THE STORE WHERE THEY MEASURED YOU FOR CLOTHES FITTINGS ..... WHERE YOU GOT TOP-NOTCH SCHOOL CLOTHING AND WHERE YOU COULD WATCH YOUR CHANGE COME BACK TO YOU ON A SHUTTLE SYSTEM
A visit to Doggarts was a must for many an Echo reader.
The popular store was once a big feature in many North East communities including Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, Peterlee, Wingate, and Chester-le-Street.
And to find out just how much you thought of Doggarts, we posted a photograph on social media of the Houghton branch and asked for your memories of the store which closed in 1980.
Margaret Pickersgill remembered it and said it was in the main street next to Burtons the tailor. “Houghton was cracking back then,” she said. “My mam used to take me in when I was little.”
She said she loved the second floor which was where the toys were.
Maria Teasdale said: “Got my first pair of turquoise canvas jeans in Doggarts in 1970.”
And Angela Taylor had memories of the branch in Durham market place “where Boots is now...remember top floor cafe and fab wooden and glass display counters..sell for a fortune now!”
Lesley May Rowley said: “Loved watching the shuttles going along the tracks to the office, and waiting for the change to come back.”
Janice Bray was a Saturday girl at the Peterlee shop. “There was nothing that Doggarts didn’t stock,” she said. “A great shop, sadly missed.”
Glen Davison called it “a proper posh shop, bit like Are You Being Served, where they measured you for clothes.”
Colin Branthwaite said: “Doggarts in Seaham was regularly used by my mother” while Elizabeth Bell told us: “Used to love Doggarts and Woolworths in Church Street in Seaham.”
Carole Collings reminisced: “We got our wool school blazers there” and
Janet Robinson said she got school uniforms there for Seaham Grammar School, in around 1967.
Thanks to everyone who shared their comments and to more than 24,000 people who followed the post.