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Nortons, Key Hill

pamhol

master brummie
Does anyone remember Nortons, the department store at the bottom of Key Hill? I used to go there with my nan on Saturday. We would go up to the first floor in the cafe where we had the best toast. Or sometimes, we would have cheese on toast. It was quite an up market store, where you could buy almost anything. I loved it.
 
I remember Nortons. In 1962 I bought my first 'proper' perfume there, Norman Hartnell's 'In Love'. I used to think Nortons was posh, but then I discovered Rackhams. For a few months I worked in a shop on The Flat, and used to go to Nortons in my lunchtime, also I used to walk to the top of Key Hill where there was a shop that sold bits of stuff which you could not really call jewellery, just bits of costume stuff, but probably all I could afford at the time. I used to just stand and look, I never bought. The building is no longer there, it was on the corner of Key Hill Drive, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
 
As a child, Nortons was a "posh shop", especially for Hockley!!!!! My nan was a bit of a snob, bless her, and she loved to shop there. I loved it in there. But as you say, when we started working in Birmingham, it was a different world. I would go into Rackhams for the smell of all the perfumes, lovely! I got most of my clothes from C & A and shoes from Mansfield in Corporation Street.
 
I used to go in Nortons a lot, only for a modge round though, couldn't afford to buy anything! My mom's cousin had a shop further up Key Hill, called Agnes's. It sold "ladies modes" and millinery. Tiny compared to Nortons, but she made a living.
 
My mother used to take me to Nortons when I needed new clothes and this was during the 1940's. I vaguely remember the shop, and I thought it was quite 'posh' too.
 
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