Walking tour guide Ian Mole leads us on a nostalgic journey to the sites of some of Sunderland's much-missed old shops
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00:00 Hello, my name is Ian Moore. I conduct several walk and tours of Sunderland, including Shipyard Girls, Lost Pubs of the 1960s and Musical Memories of the 60s and 70s.
00:12 Today I'm going to talk about some, by no means all, of the big stores and shops that are no longer here that I remember from when I was a child.
00:21 So here we are at the end of Fawcett Street, the main street in Sunderland.
00:24 There's been a lot of discussion online and elsewhere about the changing character of the street. Back in the 60s when I was a kid it was very much the main shopping street of the town, together with High Street West going that way and a bit of John Street.
00:37 But with the development of the new town centre, which changed into the bridges and of course internet shopping, people haven't used this street much and one by one the big shops have closed down.
00:49 Wilkbores just closed two or three days ago and already it's completely empty, so we have to wait and see what might happen with that building.
00:58 Bins itself has a long history. It was founded by a guy called George Bins back in the 1780s down High Street West going towards the docks.
01:10 That was really the main centre of Sunderland then. It was only in the 20th century that Fawcett Street etc. became the focal point for shopping.
01:18 So he moved to Fawcett Street in 1886 and the buildings we can see behind us, obviously they're much newer than that.
01:27 During the war in 1941 they were both destroyed by Nazi bombers. The one on the right certainly was destroyed by incendiary bombs.
01:36 I did read that actually the company managed to continue. They got some of the stock out and they rented a place in Holmside and they continued business.
01:47 So they were very indomitable in them days. A friend of my grandmother's, Mrs Cruddus I think, she was very good at making clothes.
01:56 When the store got bombed they had something called a fire sale. It was near Wilson's Timber Yard at the north side of the Weymouth Bridge.
02:04 She went there and she bought rows and rows of this very thick material and she made it into siren suits which were like glorified jumpsuits that you put on during the night when you had to get up and run across to the nearest air raid shelter.
02:19 So I think even Winston Churchill had one, not one of Mrs Cruddus's though.
02:25 So behind us you can see both sides of what was Binns and what was recently Wilgos.
02:30 This part was rebuilt in 1953 and the part on the other side not until 1962.
02:35 I vaguely remember there being a big hole in the ground, a big bomb site where Jameson's Pub is now.
02:41 A year or two after they reopened something which seemed incredible to me, it was like going to the moon.
02:47 They built a tunnel between both parts of the store and this was, it seemed amazing to me, I don't know why.
02:53 I mean these days tunnels are two a penny but we had to go down as soon as it opened just to walk through the tunnel to see what it was like.
02:59 It was quite exciting.
03:01 They had all sorts of nice things in this side of the store, especially the delicatessen and we never heard of it apart from the foodstuffs they had in there.
03:11 We used to joke about it.
03:12 One of my friends, Gary, he said, 'I'm going to go down, I'm going to buy a fox's lip.'
03:17 And they had a boutique so around about 13, 14 years of age we started to get a little bit close conscious.
03:23 I mean I've never exactly been more Brummel-like but I saved my pocket money up and I bought a slightly psychedelic tie for seven and six I think in late 1967 so I could wear it at the school socials.
03:35 So behind me you can see Joplin's which was a very well-liked store by my mum and countless other people in Sunderland.
03:44 It closed in 2010 and it's now a student accommodation.
03:48 It had a long history.
03:50 So like bins it started off down High Street West and it moved here in 1956.
03:55 The area around here, there used to be a big church here, St Thomas' Church, and where the pub is over the road, 808, this was all completely destroyed.
04:05 So they rebuilt the Joplin store there in 1956.
04:10 One thing I remember about it, that escalators and it had a lift.
04:15 There were very, very few lifts in Sunderland in the early 60s until they built all the tower blocks and that.
04:21 And I think I was 18 before I knew how to operate a lift.
04:25 It sounds ridiculous but I'd just never really been in one before.
04:28 They used to have a lot of celebrities coming here.
04:31 If older fans of Coronation Street remember Minnie Caldwell, she came there once to open something up.
04:37 And I think Michael Myles from Take Your Pick, he was also there one day.
04:42 So just behind where I am is the telephone exchange.
04:45 Until the mid 70s there was a beautiful arcade there, Palmer's Arcade.
04:49 It had been there for about 100 years and it replaced an earlier arcade.
04:54 So if you're not sure what an arcade is, it's really like a prototype shopping mall with a glass roof.
05:00 There was lots and lots of shops there.
05:02 I remember buying my auntie a Scorpio plate for her birthday in 1973, which I still have actually.
05:10 So I'm standing right in the middle of what used to be Liverpool House, which is a very popular department store in Sunderland.
05:16 It started off in Nile Street but by 1900 it had been established here.
05:20 This is High Street West.
05:23 Without Liverpool House I don't think I would exist.
05:26 But the simple reason, 1912, my mam's mother, she was aged 17 then, she was standing window shopping looking at this blouse.
05:36 And this young man who'd been looking at her came up and said, "I'll buy you that blouse if you like."
05:41 And they got chatting on and they went to the cinema and they eventually got married.
05:46 So without Liverpool House, as I say, I wouldn't be standing here now.
05:50 It was very popular. People will remember going to see Santa Claus here.
05:55 I certainly did. They had his Grotto at Christmas and I went there several times and sat on his knee.
06:00 I don't know whether kids are allowed to sit on Santa Claus' knee these days.
06:04 Later in life, my dad was at Santa Claus' factory where he worked, Marconi's in Paylaw.
06:10 I've got the white hair like that, maybe if I could grow a nice big beard I could be in line to maintain that tradition.
06:17 I did read that Liverpool House supplied many of the carpets for the ships that were built on the weir.
06:23 So that must have been a very lucrative contract.
06:25 It closed right about 1979 as far as I remember and as you can see there's no trace of it anymore.
06:32 So just behind me to my right there is a shop that most older people will know, Woolworths.
06:39 Known to all in Sundry as Woolies. It opened in 1923 and closed in 2004.
06:46 It was quite a cheap shop so most people could afford to buy something there.
06:51 One store, well one department really, that was very popular with kids was Pick and Mix.
06:58 But some kids I think thought it was called Pick and Nick.
07:01 In the early 60s they had these monkey dolls that were about this big.
07:05 They had plastic faces and ears and hands and big boots.
07:08 And we had one called Jacko.
07:11 And I remember being in here one day and there was a whole army of them lined up hanging from this rail that looked very ominous.
07:18 Just across the road there used to be Boots Pharmacy of course but they also had a record department at the back.
07:25 I bought my second ever single there in late 1966.
07:30 You keep me hanging on by the suit frames.
07:32 Six and ten or about 35p in modern money.
07:36 So in those days you could really move through the shops a great deal.
07:41 Boots had an entrance on the Station Street side. I always imagined that kind of Keystone Cop scenario.
07:48 Where the police were chasing somebody that could run through Boots, run across the road here, run through Woolies, come out on John Street and then run through Joplin's onto St Thomas Street.
07:57 It probably happened sometime.
07:58 So just behind where I am now is another very popular store called Blackett's.
08:03 Closed 1972 and just to give you an idea how many people worked in these kind of stores, 150 people were made redundant at that time.
08:11 So it was popular for fashions.
08:14 I remember I think 1966 people who remember Ready Steady Go, Cathy McGowan, one of the faces of the 60s, she came here to sort of launch something at that time.
08:25 Most of the stores had their own little record booths as well.
08:29 So that was very popular to get the top ten, easily had the top ten in a row and you just pointed the ones that you wanted.
08:36 So just behind where we are is the last of the big stores I want to talk about which was Kennedy's.
08:42 I think it closed down around about early 70s or to be more accurate, it downsized and it moved to smaller premises in Maritime Place there.
08:51 I used to go to all these shops with my mum and my aunties and my grandma when I was a kid, standing there while they looked through curtain materials and all the stuff like that.
08:59 But the main thing about this store, I think Blackett's is the same, they had those pneumatic tubes.
09:04 You didn't just pay the shop assistant and get your change, they put a bit of paper with your money in and it went off up this tube upstairs somewhere to where they got your change together and then put it back on the tube and sent it back down.
09:18 Croat Re Road about half way down on the right used to be a shop which many older people remember called Breckner's.
09:24 It was one of those shops that sold everything and to me it was like Poundland on acid.
09:29 Everywhere you went there was just all kinds of strange stuff on the shelves, maybe not great quality but cheap.
09:36 One item I bought from there and it lasted for years and years was a Sooty egg cup.
09:41 So it was a cup and Sooty was there playing cricket and I think I had it for 10 years or something before I dropped it on the floor.
09:48 Yes, so it's one of those much lamented shops, Mr Breckner's.
09:51 So just behind where I am there's a very popular women's clothes store called Books Fashions.
09:56 I think it closed 1989. It was owned by Heine and Gertie Book and I've heard that nobody that went in there came out without purchasing something.
10:04 The staff were very persuasive, let's put it that way.
10:08 In the doorway of Books Fashions, it was one of the two or three places in Sunderland where people arranged to meet somebody
10:15 and many a person was stood up standing here or standing next to Maggie's clock as well.
10:20 So there'll be some sad memories there.
10:22 So many people will remember probably Sunderland's most popular toy shop, Joce's.
10:27 It was here in the 1960s, it later moved but the company started off in the 1880s
10:32 and during the Second World War it used to be along Union Street opposite the station.
10:36 Many of you will have seen that picture when the station got bombed in 1940.
10:40 A coal truck went through the front of Mr Joce's window.
10:43 There was some debate about who was going to pay for this and certainly Mr Joce wasn't going to pay for the removal of the truck.
10:50 So I used to love coming in there in the build up to Christmas.
10:53 So I'm glad that Hills Bookshop has been remembered in the name of the Arts Centre.
10:58 This is a very, very popular bookshop along with Arrowsmiths.
11:02 It started off again down High Street at the junction with Nile Street.
11:07 Sometimes in the old days you'd get a book talking for Christmas, maybe a pound.
11:11 I mean that was a hell of a lot of money.
11:13 You'd get maybe five books for a pound but you used to take an eternity to choose which five.
11:18 So you'd spend a lot of time in there.
11:19 If you're interested in the old shops and stores of Sunderland, I heartily recommend this book,
11:23 Sunderland Shopping Heritage by Philip Curtis.
11:26 If you don't know Philip, he's one of the main people of Sunderland, the Aquarians.
11:31 This book's a little bit old now but he's written another book in collaboration with Alan Brett
11:36 about stores and coffee bars and garages and all kinds of things.
11:41 He opens up, he talks about, he takes you on a journey down Fawcett Street in 1900
11:45 and it really brings to life the sights and smells and sounds of all the different shops.
11:50 [Music plays]
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