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Shopping in the sixties

C

carole-fordy

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:rolleyes: I remember the Green Shield Stamps, books and books we used to stick just to get a clothes horse !!! and I remember going to the Co-op in town for my School uniform, Trutex Shirts ! Lewis' round record shop under the subway
 
Hello Carole,

I remember the record shop in the subway, not because of the records though, there used to be a menswear shop in the same place and I was forever buying rubbishy clothes there.
I remember once buying a Dark blue Polo neck that had a white collar..
What WAS I thinking?
I put it on, walked to the mirror and found out I looked just like a Vicar...sob.
The Green shield stamps, the only place I remember using those was at the shop near the escalators that took you up to the Bull Ring by Manzoni Gardens.
Trutex shirts? nah..but I did like seeing Pat Egan wearing one .... drool.. :)
Thanks for that.
 
Hi Kandor,

The rubbishy menswear shop would have been Nelson House, They also had a shop on the corner of Albert St.

Rubbish they certanly were, but up to date (at that time) rubbish.

pmc1947
 
:angel: The amount of time I tripped up on those...
... escalators that took you up to the Bull Ring by Manzoni Gardens.
Click to expand...
when they were turned off. I still have the indentations on my lower legs where those thick metal steps cut into them.

Never used 'Green Shield Stamps' in Brum, but I did in London where they had a big shop around Oxford St way that was like an Aladdin's cave.

I still have a 45 Record that I bought from Lewis' round record shop: Sloop John B By The Beach Boys.

Pom :angel:
 
For those shoppers who wish to compare price between then and now.

pmc1947
 
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I'm told by my other half (cos I'm outa touch, she sez :() that, relative to wages, those Grey's sale prices aren't cheap compared to today's.

I remember Nelson House and Zimmermans with their almost disposable wares. Hornes was the place for quality. My brother shopped there and I borrowed his stuff cos I couldn't afford their prices.:frown:
 
Oisin,

Your wife will remember that Greys were never what you would call inexpensive. They were slightly at the other end of the market. I shopped at Nelson House and another place at the end of Ladypool Rd, Balsall Heath called M & J 's. The first time you washed anything it almost fell apart, but as I said before it was modern and thats all that mattered.

pmc1947
 
The 21st century equivalent selling those fall-apart-after-washing-clothes (she informs me again) is Primark in New Street.
 
My wife purchased a shirt for me from Primark size XL thinking she had got a bargain.. Since it has been washed it is now a size S.

pmc1947
 
I loved going to Marshall and Snelgrove they had a lovely boutique. I couldn't afford anything on an apprentice hairdressers wage, I just liked to dream............
 
I thought all you gentlemen shopped at Chetwynds in Navigation Street.
All those wide shoulders and nipped in waists....sorry, I'm starting to drool again (age related drool, of course).
 
If gentlemen shopped at Chetwyns that explains why I never. Anyway it was too far across town. The 56 bus dropped me right outside Nelson House.

pmc1947
 
Anyone remember an obscenely expensive gents' tailors called Thrussell's, in Bennetts Hill? Not that I ever bought anything there, but they had a little coffee bar where I used to meet a girl during one of my unhappier courting phases. A waste of time on both sides, looking back, not to mention my money (I was working by then of course).
Otherwise my memories of tailors is limited to Horne Brothers, almost next to Marshall and Snelgrove in New Street, where I remember ordering two made-to-measure suits at the same time, about 1956! The one was a formal dark grey job, costing £17, and the other was a more informal army khaki coloured affair as I remember, rather irritating to the skin, which cost about £13. The next suit I bought was in 1960 for my wedding, from Alkitt's in Cambrdge Circus, London for £ 24. That was big money, but well worth it.
Peter
 
Moma P that little boutique in marshell's was the 21 shop I used to get all my mod clothes from there.
 
Thanks for that Patty I would never have remembered it was the 21 Shop. You obviously were better paid than me!:D
 
I bought my best ever made to measure suit from a tailors called
Loo Blooms in Colmore Rd near Snow Hill station. I had a fitting when the suit was half made. Thinking back, it was light blue ! I chose the material , thought it was good ! I actually went ice skating in it once.
 
My hubby Michael had a suit made at Burtons in Brum. Him and his mates had just got back from London when flaired trousers had just hit the streets. They told the fitter they wanted the trousers fitted from the hips to the knee then flaired to twenty two inches. The fitter was so amazed and the other men in the shop couldn't believe it. He was so determined to be ahead of fashion they told the salesman they needed the suits for a wedding. A dedicated follower of fashion.........but not now!
 
Hi Jenny, not sure I will have a look, this was before I met Michael.
 
sixties shopping

I remember a boyfriend doing something similar, Moma P, also at Burtons. He got the tailor to Slim down the trousers to 16" bottoms, and had round lapels with a velvet finish on the jacket, that suit was dark green. His mate Pete had one exactly the same but Cherry red. I refused to walk down the street with them. Very conservative young lady in those days;)
 
That is so funny Williams - I think we have photos of my husbands friends at that time but he was very conservative as well. His friend was called Peter and had an indoor market stall, he was a scream and still is. We miss them dreadfully even after 30 years over here. Thank goodness for the phone he still will not use a computer. :) Mo
 
Who used to shop at Lewis’s Food Hall, I thought that their ham on the bone was the best that could bought anywhere. My poor wife made the trip to town once a week for the sole purpose of getting my weekly supply, at least that’s what she always said. Strange she always returned with about three or four bags.

Heres a little advert from Lewis’s food hall a little earlier than the sixties, the late fifties I think.

Pmc1947
 
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Just a little earlier in the late 50's, I used to take Brian's trousers to a Jewish Taylor, somewhere in town, he would alter them from a wide leg to a 'stove pipe'. I loved to linger in there and watch them pressing cloth with their big steam irons.

Loved the Lewis's ad pmc, I haven't heard of hipbone steak since I left Brum, I wonder how much a packet for 2/- would have weighed:)
 
I went to Horne's in New street(I won a few pound on the dogs!) to be measured for a suit, thought I was the business,!!!!!!, until the gentleman asked me "and which side dose sir dress?"??? he quickly realized that I had no idea of what he meant and was not used to shopping at posh shops,so carried on measuring my inside leg.I asked my girlfriend (at the time) what he had asked me, she did not know either, but said"you should have told him both sides to be on the safe side":redface:
 
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