This old postcard shows the Stockton Co-operative Industrial and Provident Society, branch number 17. I have a list of branches compiled in 1966 but branch 17 is missing, does anyone know the location of this Co-op?
Image and details courtesy of James Marcus Beadle.
Still remember our divi number.
Harland place in Norton? Where the post office is now I think.. It was a chemist when I was a child but believe it was a grocers in 1956 because my dad worked there and my mam in a hardware shop opposite which is how they met although this looks older I believe it was well established.
I don’t think it was ever a grocers shop, I remember it being Lambs the chemist and I think before that it was another chemists. Nearest grocers were the Co-op, I think Gallons and Newmans.
I’ve been speaking to my brother and you are right I got muddled. He thinks there was a co-op on Greta road and this might have been what I am thinking of, he said my mum worked in McLaughlin’s hardware shop (not sure of spelling) in Harland Place – the only thing I know is that my mum who knew how to wire a plug and what sort of nails to use and it was my dad who knew how to make butter pats !
Delia the Co-op shop your brother talks about could be the Leven Road branch which is next to Greta Road.
I love old pictures and history, so I am loving this! My dad just told me that my nana and grandad used to work in a co-op (not sure which) and thats how they met!
Could this possibly be the Co-op that was on Vicarage Street just beside the juntion with Bishopton Road? We lived just around the corner from this branch, at 21 Bishopton Road, and opposite the sweet shop and post office.
No Joyce, I don’t think that this was one of the units within the unusual curved Coop-style ‘architecture’ buildings that stood at the Bishopton Lane /Vicarage Street junction next to the Evangelist Chapel. Although I do believe that the Picture Stockton Team do have a picture of one of the shops that stood on the corner of Bedford Street, just opposite your home.
Whereever this branch was situated within Stockton, it appears to have been on the ‘sunny side of the street’. Note the externally mounted pull-out canvas canopy / sun awning above the fascia panel of the shopfront, these were later often built-in or recessed into the fascia.
Such awnings were essential in order to protect stock displayed in the window from the effects of warm sunlight. Extra protection appears to have been offered by wood-slat venetian blinds, which are shown ‘pulled-up’ at the head of the display windows.
The high-gloss ceramic tiles applied to the stall-riser under the windows, kept the shop looking fresh, as they protected this area from the effects of general street-grime or rainwater splashing and could be easily washed down each day.
The Coop was ‘the friend’ of the working-classes, as it had a policy of ethically pricing it’s goods offered for sale. The name ‘Pelaw’ shown in the upper shopfront windows, refers not only to the Coop’s own boot polish, but also to the huge manufacturing plants the organisation developed at that Co. Durham township (near Gateshead) in the 19th century. Here, the Coop made everything from shirts, to furniture and even medicines, all under it’s own integrated management in order to keep costs and therefore retail prices low.