Bradford’s pop-up shop from a bygone era has proved a big hit, with more than 1,000 people popping in to take a look in one day alone.
For eight-year-old Matthew Hewitt and his granddad Tony, shopping 1930s-style prompted different responses.
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“This is how I remember shops as a lad,” said Tony, 70, of Wibsey. “It’s wonderful seeing fresh food on display, instead of everything wrapped in plastic. This is how it was before supermarkets came along.”
His grandson Matthew crinkled his nose up at the slab of cheese on the counter. “I don’t like cheese – but I like Rolos,” he said, pointing to a basket filled with the chocolate sweets.
The sights, smells and sounds of 1930s retail returned to Bradford over the weekend at Sergison’s Grocer and Confectioner. The snow failed to deter visitors from flocking to the ‘pop-up shop’, aimed at re-creating the shopping experience of 80 years ago.
On Friday, a staggering 1,000 people visited the shop – the type of custom that most retailers would dream about.
The shop was part of the BBC Learning’s Hands on History project complementing BBC1 series Turn Back Time – The High Street.
“It’s great to see so many people coming along. Older people are sharing memories of shopping in Bradford, and children are having fun with the interactive activities,” said BBC spokesman Monica Ho. On display was tinned produce, including macaroni and treacle, jars of biscuits and beetroot, and familiar brands such as Rolos and bottles of Tizer. Baskets were filled with vegetables, still muddy from the field.
“I know all my customers, and they know that when times are hard I’ll cut them a thin slice of meat or cheese,” said thirties-style grocer, Mr Turner, standing behind his counter with its gleaming brass bell. Nearby, youngsters dressed up in a grocer’s apron and played with a wooden trolley.
“It’s a good job I can buy a single egg, what with my husband being out of work. Times are hard but you have to keep up appearances and be seen in your local shop,” said ‘customer’ Mrs Howard, dressed in a period coat and hat. In the grocer’s ‘back room’, where flying ducks hung on the wall above a 1930s-style TV set, people watched footage of Bradford shopping from the 1870s onwards and reclined on a settee to read old publications, including a 50-year-old Telegraph & Argus.
A Timeline interactive exhibition featured different eras of retail; Victorian and Edwardian periods, wartime rationing, the birth of supermarkets in the 1950s-60s, the Winter of Discontent of 1978-79, and the present.
Visitors pulled out drawers to reveal smells of produce, from lavender to bacon, on sale in a typical grocer’s. Picking up old-fashioned telephones, they listened to memories of rationing, and running a shop, and the air was filled with the sound of archive BBC news reports, comedy shows and music.
Visitors were encouraged to record memories for West Yorkshire Archives Service’s website, nowthen.org website, or write memories onto labels pinned onto a washing line.
“I’ve written about the line that took the orders and money from the counter around old shops,” said Shaun Radcliffe. “My wife, Julia, is from Bradford and remembers a vacuum system, with a tube behind the counter.”
On display were items loaned from Bradford Museums and Galleries, including a pair of 1932 shoes and a balls of wool from Brown, Muff, a Busby’s hat, a Victorian silk dress from Bradford company Parkinson Clark & Co and a description of local life in 1934 by a Clayton Co-operative worker who opened a grocery on Duckworth Lane. Ann Crowther, of Fagley, was reminded of her days working on the grocer’s counter at Bradford’s Co-op Emporium from 1956 to 1960. “It was just like this,” she said. “These days shopping is all hectic bulk-buying but back then you did your shopping every day, and bought whatever the butcher or grocer had. It was a chance to catch up on the day’s gossip – for some women it was their only time out of the house. There’d be a chair put out for the oldest customer. The shopkeeper knew you and knew what you wanted.”
The pop-up shop was opened on Friday by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Peter Hill.
“I don’t remember this era but I remember the rationing years. A lot of these products are familiar. Shopping didn’t change much between the 1930s and after the war,” he said. “It’s a great insight into how people used to live and shop. There were no refrigerators so everyone bought fresh produce daily and, with only the well-off owning cars, most women walked to the shops. Nowadays people bulk-buy at supermarkets, or do online shopping.
“Shop staff were paid low wages back then, so there was a higher staff-to-customer ratio and a more personal service, an element which has largely gone.” Care manager Emma Dibbin, 31, from Horton Bank Top said: “Shops in the olden days were more part of the neighbourhood and brought communities together. I think it would have been a lot nicer and so was the produce, you’d know things were fresh and where they’d come from.”
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