A final visit to Jackson's department store, Reading

Jackson's department store in Reading closed down on 24 December 2013, after 138 years of trading. It was THE place to get your school uniform, balls of wool, and sensible underwear, among many other essential items.

All the fixtures and fittings are due to be auctioned inside the store on Saturday 4 January 2014, and with two public viewing days beforehand, I made a lunchtime visit to see and say goodbye to the store. It was quite an emotional experience, with many now-redundant members of staff on hand to answer questions as you walked around looking at the items up for auction. Some of the items are absolutely fascinating from a social history point of view, and I really hope these end up in the hands of Reading museum or similar. I can't make it to the auction on Saturday, but I just might bid on a certain lot online. You can view the full list of items up for auction here, and see pictures from my visit below :)

You can bid on a changing room!

Spare hands anyone?

Ledger for 16 February, 1917

I found a book of school blazer badges particularly interesting:

E P Collier primary school, Caversham

St Joseph's Convent Day School 1932

H & P (presumably Huntley & Palmers?) Boys Club, 1931

Reading University Swimming Club 1926

Kendrick School, 1932

Rough sketch of a badge for  the boarders at St Joseph's Convent

Reels of clothes labels

Porter's trolley

Scissors and a hat sizer

Da Boss's Office

Lovely hand-printed wallpaper. And some rat poison.

5 poodles, 3 cats, 7 pig banks, 2 terriers, 3 zebras, 1 panther. Etc...!

Headless friends

The legendary child mannequin they call Cruella

Considering bidding on this...

Love...!

The dumb waiter

Gas-fired iron warmer with irons

Staff room notice

The sewing room

Jackson's has its very own Tardis

Display toadstools

Looks inviting?

WOE IS ME

That solitary grey hair is rather odd!

<sniff> :(

Farewell x

A tale of forgotten poems

I've started a new blog - Poems from Mr Nash. It will be documenting a collection of nearly 100 poems my sister and I found inside books bought by our mother in the late 1950s/early 1960s, all written by a Mr Cyril Nash, who owned a bookshop in London which she regularly frequented.

The poems tell tales of her visits to the bookshop, the poet's admiration of her, and his general observations of the shop and life in general.

I'm thinking the blog will also profile our mother's life and love of books, as well as highlights from her book collection. Hopefully, with research, I'll also get a better insight into the poet, his bookshop, and other customers of the time.

I'd be very happy if you read the link, shared it, followed it on Twitter and Facebook. Don't ask much, do I? :)

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