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House that Jack Built

gingerjon

gingerjon

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN R.I.P.
though it was the House that Jack Built most people called it the House of Jack Built the goods inwards entrance was in Webster Street do you know any one who worked there John
 
The House that Jack Built

I don't think any one who lived in Aston didn't buy something from "The
House OF Jack Built, they sold everything from a teaspoon to carpets and
furniture, I bought a large carpet square from them when I got married, plus regular smaller items over the years.

I have heard a story but I can't say how true it is, that many years ago before WW2 there were five tortoises in the window, live ones, spelling out the shop name and if they happened to be all lined up in the right order you could choose anything from the shop for free. Has anyone else
ever heard this tale?
 
can any tell me how The House That Jack Built got it's name as it belonged to S Lewis were did Jack come from?
 
:D I recall that The House that Jack Built and the Co-op in the city centre had those vacuum tubes threading their way up walls and along ceilings carrying your cash, change and receipts to and from a mystical cashier hidden somewhere in "the Gods". How did those tubes work ? How did the container in the tube know where to go back to, what was the technology behind it all ? :?:
 
TUBES

I remember the HOJB having wires? rather than vacuum tubes, its really strange how memories play tricks?
 
The House that Jack built

I dont know about The House that Jack built.........but my mom was a cashier in the offices above George Masons, 1946-1960 ish, and she tells me it was a pulley system that took the cannesters up to her, for the bills to be added, it all recorded onto the accounts sheets and the change was put back into the cannester with a receipt and returned to the shop assistant via the pulley system.A mechanical system rather than automatic. :roll:
 
YES

that sounds like the system I was trying to put over, but I cant say for certain.
 
:D Yes the ones in our Co-Op in Gt Lister St were worked by pullies. When I arrived in NZ in 1970 one of the restaurants here still used the system and my kids were just as fascinated with it as it seems we were :lol: Does anyone remember having to get a can of Paraffin Oil for the heaters. It came in blue and pink and the blue was cheepest and smelled alot more than the pink, we got ours from Mrs Jones on Gt Lister St. Also gas mantals that were like egg shells, and I remember having to go with my sister to buy these also, but that was before we lived in Gt Lister St with electric lights. 8)
 
O Linoleum !

(and that's not me showing off with my Latin !)

The House that Jack Built was where dad would, every now and again, visit to buy a new sheet of linoleum for the kitchen or even the living room. Euipped with a Stanley knife he would fit the lino, trying hard not to dog-ear the corners, or worse still crack and break them.

Newly fitted it made the room look clean, fresh and even clinical for a few short weeks until the wear started to show by the doors from continual too-ing and fro-ing of us oiks ! We always seemed to get the same colours and patterns !

now for the Latin.....

O genus humanus !

:twisted:
 
The House that Jack Built- the gas man cometh

I remember this one day the Gas Man called and emptied our meter, it was full of tanners, old sixpence coins, in case anybody is too young to remember. Anyway i got a bag full of tanners rebated. Wait for it....I loaded the little ones, into their transport, Stephen in his invalid chair and Michael wedged at the back. And off we went down Potters Hill, past the Aston Hipp, across Burlington Street, past Griffins (greengrocers) past a mens outfitters (cannot remember their name) across another road (cant remember the name of that one) pub on the corner, then a cake shop (was it Baines) to my mecca The House that Jack Built, facing the other Griffins (greengrocers) next door to Blacks. I rigged the kids out, cannot really remember what i bought but they needed it all.

God but we were hard-up; anyway Bill came home from work, and i proceeded to tell him about our windfall, he just looked at me and said "Any left?" - "No" - "Well did i get anything" ...."Oh yes" I gave him a tee shirt. He didn't let me live that down for years. He's past caring these days, but it was alway good for a laugh when he'd got an audience.
 
I remember the toy counters in The House of Jack Built (yes, we did used to call it ''of'' :))
Mom used to take me in there in the 60's.
I wanted some pretend plastic red nails that you popped over the end of your fingers to pretend you had long nails.
But the card of them was 12d, a shilling...so I saved the penny a day (given to me for Jammy Dodgers for the break at Burlington St school) for 12 days without telling my mom...then when I had the shilling, bravely went up there, by myself, after school, and bought them...
I had to hide them under the sofa cushions...of course they were found. :-[ ;D

I remember the big weighing scales near the entrance.

The rest of it was boring to me as a child 8)
 
Here's another item I picked up at a boot sale.I t dates from 1915. O0
 
Oooooh posite, that really is wonderful. Rod will want to put it on the Aston site - won't you Rod ;)

It begs question though doesn't it. Is it a club card, or perhaps you could pay in instalments, and collect good at the end - no HP in 1915. Was there another Wellington Road other than the one in Perry Barr?
 
It's true!! I worked at the Co-Op No77 Newtown Row, and they had pullies to get the money to the cashier. Sid Walker.
 
I'm sure that the same was in all Co-op shops Green Grocers etc, there was also same in Taylors corner of Webster Street seem to remember. :)
 
Thanks Sylvia you are right 110% just a slip of the brain :smitten:
 
This is the payment section of the card previosly pictured from The house that jack built. It seems that
2pounds 9 shillings was spent on clothes and thirteen and eleven pence was spent on boots.
 
Hi there
Recently new to looking for family and lost relatives I got together with mum on the weekend looking at old photographs and listening to memories. One wedding photo showed the bridesmaids "tiara" and mum said - "I got those from the House that Jack Built - cost me a pound each they did". Now today I am looking at the site and saw this message about the shop. It is a great site and reading the messages and reading about places mum has mentioned.

Thank you all.

Elaine
 
Alf, yes it is the Dog & Duck,.

John, I meant it was the end of an era, the end of Newtown Row as we knew it as a great shopping centre.
 
Hi John: Thanks for the photo. When my Mother worked for Sun Cycles I used to go and meet her and we would "do" the Newtown Row shops. Even before I went in half the shops and the market, I knew all about them because Mum used to do a lot of shopping along there and, of course, talk about how much she liked shopping there.
Also, bringing home the faggots and peas from Potters Hill was much looked forward to.

Later on I started taking a different bus home from town so that I could go and have a look around THTJB. I bought some great china for my bottom drawer from there. Very good quality as I remember. You could obtain all your needs from the shops along Newtown Row and I loved going to shop in different areas....still do come to think of it.

Yes, that photo sadly portrays the end of an era but we all seem to have great memories of the happy times when we knew all those shops so well.
 
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