High Street Memories from Eighty Five Years in Poole

I would like to present a few excerpts from a memoir that is currently available for reading at the History Center.

With Woolworths opening and setting the High Street ablaze with everything priced at 3d or 6d, old pence of course, shops were now starting to modernize and were an instant success. The old thatched cottage where Woolworths was located was nowhere to be seen, but at least progress had begun. Woolworths employed a variety of incentives to draw clients. To the chagrin of ironmongers, one of them featured sales where buckets were sold for six pennies. Naturally, there weren’t many for sale, but it brought people into the store, and that was the plan, naturally. If customers couldn’t get a bucket, they were almost guaranteed to purchase something once they were inside. The sale of piano sheet music for all the hit songs of the day was another thing. Pianos were in high demand because so many homes at the time owned one. A female pianist was hired as an additional incentive to play the well-known songs, and she was very good at it, occasionally breaking away from the song to perform it in her own unique style with scorching syncopated jazz rhythms that had us tapping our feet. It was really amazing to watch and hear her as her fingers flew over the keys and her body swayed to the beat. It was authentic music. I remember her quite well with her bobbed hair swinging, the bob cut had just become all the rage amongst girls accompanied by a raising of the hem of the skirt to the knees, much to the delight of the men.”

“There were two upmarket stores that sold many delicacies that were bought by the more affluent among the population.  These were Giffords next to Saint Pauls church, the site now occupied by guess who? MacDonalds, I cannot think of a greater contrast, and then there was Burdens on the corner of Kingland Road, where it joined the High Street.  That would be now about the entrance to the Dolphin shopping centre off the George roundabout.  Burdens were a very old established firm opening in Poole during the 1850’’, I used to love the smell of coffee being ground and roasting in the shop. “

People could now purchase clothing at affordable costs thanks to the opening of stores like Montague Burtons, Fifty Shilling Tailors, and Marks and Spencer. Everyone appeared more sophisticated and successful as a result, and the new buildings those companies constructed naturally brightened the High Street.

“In due course the Hants and Dorset Bus Company as it was then, enlarged their services to cover the whole Borough.  Motor traffic had by now increased enormously and the High Street was a nightmare with traffic going both ways and cars parked both sides of the road, it must have been terrible for the bus drivers.  There was always great excitement on Saturday evenings during the Autumn and Winter, the Bournemouth Echo, as it was then, always published an edition called the “Football Echo”, it was printed on paper slightly tinted yellow.  The paper sellers came rushing down the High Street calling out “Footer Echo” with everyone scrambling to buy one.  Somehow the publishers managed to get all the results printed, it must be remembered there were no floodlights then, the matches had all finished at about 3.30pm.  So there we were, all excited and arguing about the results, usually standing in the middle of the road and being honked at by the cars and buses.  The 1930’s Saturday evening Poole High Street where everybody knew everybody happy days.”