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Shops in parlours

Kieran

Brummie babby
Very new to this so please be patient.
I am trying to research homes and trading in 1950's 1960's Britain. As I was born in 1960, I have a vague recollection of people trading goods, mainly food from their home parlours. I have spoken to a few people that have confirmed my memories. My request from yourselves is two fold.

1. Can people share their memories of these homes with me, and if possible can you share any photographs of such homes, this I am told would be next to impossible.

2. Now for the hard one, i have a recollection of going to a house to buy cigarettes from a vending machine that was situated just inside the front door. Please don’t tell me I have lost my mind, as no one else seems to think that this would have happened.

Regards Kieran Portwood
 
Hi Kieran,

Welcome to the Birmingham Historical Forum. If you stay with it I am sure that you will enjoy it. Many shops in the inner city streets were , in fact, houses that had the front room converted These shops thrived before the supermarkets came on he scene but are now gradually disappearing. Regarding the cigarette machine inside the front door it is possible but I do not really see the point. Most of these shops had a machine just outside so that it could be used even when the shop was closed. Strangely enough they were rarely, if ever, broken into (the machines I mean). I do not think that they would last for long nowadays.

All the best.

Old Boy
 
Thanks Old Boy,
I agree with your statement about machines not being broken into back thouse days. Yet in some parts of the world today, I have Dubai in mind, shop keepers leave their goods out on the street even when closed (40 inch flat screens for the taking, if you dare). Does that not show how far our society in the UK has advanced beyound the so called savage nations........
 
Hi Keith,

I do not know about Dubai but many parts of the world have much stricter punishment than ourselves. Hands removed for thieving and the death penalty for drug trafficing. Perhaps that accounts for less crime in such countries.

Old Boy
 
In the late 50s / early 60s, the Post Office in our Village was just a wooden table top placed at right angles to the front door of a small cottage. the rest of the room was open. A post box was fitted into the wall eventually, but most people dropped their letters into a cardboard box by the door. A mesh screen and wooden partitions were fitted in the late 60s when the GPO tried to modernise itself. This state remained until the death of the Postmistress when the PO went into the nearby shop in the mid 70s. This, only 15 miles from B'ham city centre, was not unusual. My grandparents always stopped in Sutton, (Reddicap Hill), to get their beer for Sunday lunch from an 'off licence', which was also just a front room in a terraced house.

I believe that this practise stemmed from the poverty of the 20s & 30s when 'Co-Ops' were started within communities, with all contributing to stocking and patronising these 'self-help' shops.

Any help?
 
My late Wifes Aunt Ann had such a Shop (converted front room) during the war, 1950's and early 60's when it was demolished to make way for the Aston Express Way. It was in Vicarage Road Aston, and had a fair trade from the pupils of Aston Manor Girls school directly opposite (sweets and pop) , but she sold every thing including ice cream she made herself. She also allowed 'strap' (credit to be paid up on pay day). Her living room and bedrooms were full of stock I remember. Very little of the stock was pre-wrapped like now, she had the old fashioned scales with brass weights and she would weigh out the butter, sugar, cheese etc... and wrap it in paper or little bags. She was also known for her home made toffee apples, I can personally vouch for them. Her Husband Ted was widely known as Holy Joe for his strong religious beliefs. Oh, she never had a cigarette machine, either in the shop or outside, I do remember a Masons pop sign she used to put outside each day. Eric
 
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I can remember several "Front Room" shops when growing up in Erdington in particular although I remember seeing several in Aston over the late l940's and l950's. I wrote about this subject several years ago and here is one excerpt. https://www.pasttimesproject.co.uk/lsl_browse.php?subsite=ll&story=1227 I worked at John Wilson & Sons (Wholesale Grocers) in New John Street West in the late l950's and several of the salesmen from that company visited the "small grocers shops" to take their orders on a regular basis. I remember a pawnbrokers in High Street, Aston and a herbalist further up from this shop, both front room shops. Many of the small grocers didn't sell anything that had to be refrigerated except milk that was delivered on a daily basis and some of them sold a small line of bakery goods. The stores disappeared over the years due to redevelopment and the popularity of larger supermarkets.
 
2. Now for the hard one, i have a recollection of going to a house to buy cigarettes from a vending machine that was situated just inside the front door. Please don’t tell me I have lost my mind, as no one else seems to think that this would have happened.


Hi Kieran

No you have not lost your mind; we had a cigarette machine at home.

I remember other people had them too. Some were made from wood; looked quite posh, four draws for the cigarettes.

The one we had was quite modern; supplied by the local news agent, it had two draws and a slot in the top for (I think) half a crown(12 1/2p).

My dad smoked forty cigarettes a day in those days, Senior Service. The shops did have quite restricted opening times, so he had the machine.

The news agent would come and fill it up every week or so,then give my dad back the change.

There were lots of on street cigarette machines; I recallsome at the No 65 bus terminus at Streetley Road Short Heath.

We did not have a car in those days, my dad was a carpenterfor the housing department, he went to work on his bike; Erdington to James Street Lozells, he would ride all round Hansworth and Lozells, visit all his jobs, go back to the depot to clock off at night and then home. I would imagine he did not feel like going out for cigarettes after all that.

One strange twist on the cigarette machine story; one day it was pouring down with rain (not quite sure if dad used the word ‘pouring’ down). Dad had no money for bus fair or cigarettes, so he opened up the machine, a few days before the news agent was due to call.

When he saw the money he was spending on smoking all at once, he started to think a little differently about smoking…. He took a packet of cigarettes, a ‘couple of bob’ for the bus fair to work, which he promised mom he would put back on payday. Smoked two of the cigarettes on the bus to work, but some how, smoking had lost its appeal, so he packed up that very day.

He kept the packet in his pocket for a couple of weeks, but never put a cigarette in his mouth ever again.

Just goes to show that….:010:
 
Going back even further, my dads family are on the 1901 census and 1891 census as storekeeper in their home address in Garrison Lane, so it's an old practice.
Like you I have vague memories of them, but nothing solid springs to mind, will consult the oldies tomorrow lol
Sue
 
Hi Kieran

No you have not lost your mind; we had a cigarette machine at home.

I remember other people had them too. Some were made from wood; looked quite posh, four draws for the cigarettes.

The one we had was quite modern; supplied by the local news agent, it had two draws and a slot in the top for (I think) half a crown(12 1/2p).

My dad smoked forty cigarettes a day in those days, Senior Service. The shops did have quite restricted opening times, so he had the machine.

The news agent would come and fill it up every week or so,then give my dad back the change.

There were lots of on street cigarette machines; I recallsome at the No 65 bus terminus at Streetley Road Short Heath.

We did not have a car in those days, my dad was a carpenterfor the housing department, he went to work on his bike; Erdington to James Street Lozells, he would ride all round Hansworth and Lozells, visit all his jobs, go back to the depot to clock off at night and then home. I would imagine he did not feel like going out for cigarettes after all that.

One strange twist on the cigarette machine story; one day it was pouring down with rain (not quite sure if dad used the word ‘pouring’ down). Dad had no money for bus fair or cigarettes, so he opened up the machine, a few days before the news agent was due to call.

When he saw the money he was spending on smoking all at once, he started to think a little differently about smoking…. He took a packet of cigarettes, a ‘couple of bob’ for the bus fair to work, which he promised mom he would put back on payday. Smoked two of the cigarettes on the bus to work, but some how, smoking had lost its appeal, so he packed up that very day.

He kept the packet in his pocket for a couple of weeks, but never put a cigarette in his mouth ever again.

Just goes to show that….:010:

When I was about 17 and a non smoker I found an Irish half crown (2/6d) and for a laugh put it in a cigarette machine and got a pack of 20 cigarettes. Me and a pal choked on the first couple but then got used to them, and I then smoked like a chimney for the next 25 years, fortunately I managed to quit smoking about 20 years ago.
 
There were two shops in our street like this, they were fitted with a counter and such, and when the ladies who run them retired, they just turned them back into parlours, front rooms, there was also a lady who had a cigarette machine in her front room, you would give her the money, and she would bring the cigs out, I think she got commission on what she sold.
 
I never thought I would have received so much help on my thread, This is great site for research, mybe my London colleges should join up. Thank you for all your help. Talking to other historians, there seems to be an agreement that there would be very little photographic evidence, does anyone have any links or materials that would be relevant.
I am so glad that Sue has solved with how and why people had the cigarette vending within the home.
 
Elizabeth,
Thats very much how I remember things being, but the women I visited as a very young 6 year ish, had this wonderfull maching hanging on the wall. Odd I have never smoked in my life, but it was facinating then, it must have been for the image still to be there after 45 years.

Many thanks,
Kieran
 
Kieran

Where I lived in Larches Street in Sparkbrook a childhood friend had a cigarette machine on the wall in their front room. Of course on Sundays when all the local shops were closed his front room was busier than the Churches.

Phil
 
My Mother opened a shop in the parlour (front room) the year i was born 1929 to 1966 she had to close in 1966 because of the building of the Swan Underpass, i have a photo of Mom in the shop which i will post, Len.
 
There are lots of photo's.on the forum of house shops,here's two next door to each other...Clifton Rd Aston.
 
Yes it is bab,my gran left that shop when the bombing started,for the "safety" of Perry Barr...one hundred yards from Kynochs,the biggest store of high explosives in the country.:rolleyes: if that had a big hit Perry Barr,Witton an Aston would have been a big hole.:cry:
 
you are so lucky to have that pic ray..i have one of my nan outside her little shop in well st about 1929 will go and hunt it out and post it here..oh just as an aside my ex mother in law worked at kynochs during the war as a nurse...as you say if that building had taken a big hit it would have wiped out such a large area...

lyn
 
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