FunkyAnorak
Ironmonger's Tale
I know I'm not the only person who has good memories of working in a hardware store during the 60's in the days when everything was in black-and-white and DIY Superstores were nowhere to be seen in the UK.
The shop
in which I worked, J H
Coath in The Avenue, West Ealing, was a cross between Arkwright's in the popular BBC series
with all the style of a Home & Colonial store.
Although we were not quite 'open all hours', we did sell everything from
anvils to Zebright (but no perishables!) from Monday to Saturday with half-day
closing on Wednesday.
Originally as a Saturday job,
I gradually increased my time there by playing hooky and working during my college free-periods.
My duties were a cross between those of David Jason's character
'Granville' and Ronnie Corbett's
character from the famous 'Fork Handles' sketch in The Two Ronnies comedy!
My day started with catching the route 55 bus that ran from Yeading, via Greenford, to Ealing. The red London Transport open-platform, half-cab Routemaster buses were operated on this route.
Link:www.busesatwork.co.uk
I can recall freezing in
winter at the bus stop across the road from the White Hart pub at Northolt
waiting to go into Ealing. Then the warm, welcoming site of the double-decker
coming into view. The windows had condensation on the inside with
some clear patches where Brylcreem'ed hair had parted the mist. The upper deck allocated to smokers, I forwent my morning
'Strand' cigarette and always rushed to the
down stairs front seats to warm my feet on the transmission tunnel, and remember
watching the driver operate the semi-automatic gear selector (I'd probably do
the same today)! The 55's conductor, in London Transport
uniform complete with badged flat hat, would ensure that passengers were safely
aboard then, ringing the bell twice, we moved smoothly off on our morning
journey leaving the farmed fields around the White Hart for the civilisation of
west London.
The first job on arrival at
the shop was to open up and set up the street display on the reserved forecourt.
This consisted of
incinerators, ladders, galvanised dustbins of various sizes and other larger
items that would otherwise clutter up the shop space.
The dustbins supported a colourful assortment of upended brooms, besoms
and mops.
Whilst setting out the wares,
the local 'Bobby' would call by and report on any incidents which may have
happened during his night's policing of the area.
For example, after business hours, the officer would check every lock
shining his torch through each shop door on his beat and inform the registered
key-holder of any problems.
Coath's main shop windows
carried the 'seasonal' display, which in our case was to swap the 'push type'
lawn-mowers, with paraffin heaters during the autumn, and vice-versa in the
spring. There was no customer need
for wheeled barbecues or electronic singing Santas in those days!
The backdrop to the window
display was pegboard painted in a pastel colour plastic emulsion. To this was hooked various wares for sale, normally selected
from slow-moving stock. The theory
behind this was to cut down on the number of times items had to be retrieved
from the window, but when something was sold it was particularly worthwhile
moving on the stock!
The next job was to clean the
detritus from the shop's brown linoleum covered floor. This was an accumulation
from the previous days trading and debris blowing in under the door overnight
from the street. The routine was to sprinkle the surface with disinfectant and
sweep up the residue. The
entranceway was swilled down with a much stronger solution ... it wasn't humans
being so much a problem in those days, but uncontrolled four-legged friends!
Inside to the left, the
counter top was of thick, polished 'mahogany' hardwood, built over panel-fronted
units stained in dark oak. Towards
one end was the £-s-d (pounds, shillings and old pence) till and a set of
weighing scales with brass weights. Along
the edge was screwed a brass yard-stick used for measuring such goods as
expanding curtain wire and stick-on Fablon. Behind
the counter was a 'wall' of apothecary-style drawers labelled with such exotic
names as Casement Stays, Mortise Dead-locks, and Sash Weights.
Above these drawers, way up in the 'gods', were shelves of faded brown,
dusty cartons containing the ironmongery that would not fit into the drawers.
To the right, opposite the
counter, were floor-to-ceiling display cabinets.
The cabinet doors were of bevelled edge glass framed in hardwood stained
in dark oak. These contained
Prestige and Pyrex wares, Sheffield steel cutlery and an assortment of pans and
kettles.
At the far end of the shop were further matching display cupboards containing gardening, cleaning and chemical solutions. These included such branded products as Tide, Omo, Dolly Blue, Izal, Vim, Ajax,
Blanchards (e.g. Caustic Soda), Flit (DDT Spray) and later Coopers aerosols (with CFCs).
Link to more info
To the left,
also at the far end, was
a door to the store-room and basement; to the right was a partitioned-off office
area with a Dickensian style lift-top desk with a wild-west-style, green and
brass, security safe beneath. The
safe contained the till float, all of £5, and the Poisons Register.
The latter, similar to today's pharmacy register, had to be completed for
every sale of a dubious substance and signed for by the customer.
Out the back of the shop down
a flight of rickety old stairs was the staff outside privvy and an Oil Store
housing huge paraffin tanks (Aladdin Pink of course) and smaller drums of
linseed, turpentine, and such like. Sales
were measured by decanting the liquids into one of a range of 'approved' copper
jugs and then into the customer's container.
Naturally a cold winter's day was the busiest time for paraffin and
constant queues of people with cans would form in the shop.
The objective was to serve 3 or 4 customers at a time, stretching the, by
now numb, fingers of each hand to span the handles of the assortment of can
designs. It was OK when the cans
were empty and the flight of stairs was descended, but ascending fully loaded
was quite another matter!
The shop also operated a
delivery service and provided handyman repairs.
The delivery van had a short service life because of the corrosive nature
of the paraffin. I can remember the
van being driven by the same person who ran the Ryder School of Motoring.
I assume that he was just supplementing his income and not practising his
driving skills!
In the 60's the majority of smaller ironmongery items were sold loose. Self-selection pre-packs were very rare. This meant that pricing was done at the point of sale by looking in a grey index book or cross-referencing charts. The condition of the charts left something to be desired, well worn with oily fingerprints, indicating that, unlike today, it wasn't necessary to update prices very often.
Wood screws were sold by the dozen and priced by length and gauge in old pence. Occasionally an aspiring do-it-yourselfer would come in to buy 2 screws priced at under a halfpenny (hape'ny). The farthing no longer in circulation, this left the quandary of rounding up, or giving the screws away for nothing. My decision was made based on the following two factors: regular custom and attitude. I'll leave you, the reader, to guess the importance of each factor, and the outcome!
Coath's had the full range of customers, from those who knew just what they wanted to those who didn't!
Ironmongery beyond the realms of domestic items tended to be a male bastion. I can empathise with Granville and his head turning when in 'open all hours' a pretty girl chanced by. During less busy periods in the summer, when the forecourt needed tidying, I'd get a moment to daydream leaning on the broom and the lyrics of the song "Standing on a corner, Watching all the girls Go by" would come to mind.
We
did have one senior lady customer, I remember as a bit of an eccentric, who always came into the shop at 5-25pm insisting that she see
everything before making up her mind. She
would quietly arrive all dressed in black not noticing that there would be a
fight going on behind her back to decide who would not
serve her so near closing time!
This time her visit was to buy a bucket. Gauging her age and strength, I climbed the stepladder and retrieved a shiny, small, lightweight traditional galvanised model. She examined it top and bottom, stood up from her chair and felt the weight, sat down.
No this wasn't
the one, so I climbed the steps again, and retrieved an Addis plastic version.
She went through the same routine. No
good either. Climbing the steps, I
picked a cheaper plastic bucket, but with a lid.
I wish I hadn't. The lid
only intrigued and confused the situation. She went through the same routine
checking it top to bottom. No good
either. The shop owner was by now
cashed-up and ready to go home, but up and down the steps I went again and
again. This time, the lady watched
me moving the buckets around at the top of the ladder and started pointing to an
Addis in yellow. I brought it down
and she bought it straight away saying that she was beginning to think we didn't
stock yellow buckets !
One of the shop's prestige
customers was Plackett and Lynn, a local joinery company. They were so highly rated that they had 'an account' and were
among the elite few that were invoiced monthly for their purchases.
Mr Plackett was a
distinguished, commanding figure, dressed in blue overalls covered with a light
sprinkling of sawdust, with the stub of a pencil lodged behind one ear and a
rule folded into his leg pocket. His entrance to the shop was heralded with a
booming, "Good morning m'lad". With
his big strong workman hands, he would take a small crumpled piece of paper from
his bib pocket, an action which ejected a further liberal sprinkling of sawdust
into the air. He would proceed to read his shopping list through the haze.
"A gross of Nettlefold
1" x 8 Japan round heads, please m'lad"
"One galvanised ring
latch, please m'lad". Inexperience
caught me out on this one. Try not
to show my ignorance I wondered what the heck was a ring
latch. Mr Plackett would
immediately notice my embarrassment and tactfully point up into the gods and
say, "I think Mr Coath keeps them up there".
Climbing the steps, sure enough I would find the labelled box!
Shopping completed and about
to leave nursing his purchases with one arm, Mr Plackett would turn towards the
door and raise his other arm twisting it in the air whilst booming out a jolly,
"Thank you, good morning!". Any
apprehension over this distinguished visit would immediately subside and the
shop would return to normal.
Some 40 years on from the days of J H Coath, the premises at 15 The Avenue is still a DIY, Heating and Plumbing business trading under the name of Avenue Supplies.