A Love Affair With Department Stores

 

I fell in love with department stores from the moment my mother and I stepped through the imposing access doors of Bon Marche in Gravesend in 1945.    Later I learned that the original store was in Paris and it was said to be the oldest such emporium in the world.  By then I already realised that the doors had not actually been as imposing as I at first thought.  However, when I was five years old I had not yet heard of Paris and didn’t know all that much about doors and what made them impressive. 

What I did know was that Bon Marche was, at least as far as we were concerned, high-class and exclusive.   Their goods, according to my Grandmother were on the dear side, and my mother definitely agreed with her and sometimes said daylight robbery was involved.  Nevertheless we browsed their shelves and departments on a reasonably regular basis, observing Pringle twin sets and Burberry raincoats from afar and once we even bought some hair ribbons.   I couldn’t help noticing that we were reluctant to scrutinise some items of clothing too closely for fear of attracting the attention of a staff member who might enquire whether we needed assistance but at the same time look as if that notion was most unlikely.  

If we were on a serious buying expedition we avoided Bon Marche completely of course and went directly to British Home Stores where the goods were less costly and the staff less intimidating.   And we remained great fans of the market where back in those days both underwear and outerwear items were priced within the reach of those like us who weren’t made of money.  The only exception made by my mother was when we were buying shoes because she maintained that cheap shoes were a false economy so I never had to wear those the market offered. 

We definitely saw window shopping of all kinds as a pleasant pastime. From time to time we ventured further afield and went by bus to Chatham which I really enjoyed because on the way we saw flying boats on the Medway and caught glimpses of Rochester Castle.   The main reason for the Chatham trips was the vast and daunting Bentalls Store in the High Street where a whole morning could be spent loitering in the aisles and where staff attitudes were less alarming than those at Bon Marche.  Even more attractive was the fact that they used a cash carrier system that sent customer payments whizzing across the ceilings to the cash office whilst making a satisfying humming noise.   Watching this happen was for some reason extraordinarily exciting and seemed to place me at the cutting edge of technological advances.  Just as thrilling, there was also a café on the top floor where waitresses in black and white uniforms took orders for tea and scones or even hot meals.   We only patronised the café when in the company of several aunts or my Grandmother and when we did so we always ordered from the afternoon tea menu and I had to eat up every crumb ordered for me or I was in Big Trouble.  Meanwhile my love affair with Department Stores grew ever stronger.

I no longer recall if top floor cafes featured anywhere in Gravesend but if they did we didn’t go to them although I would have liked to though I knew my mother was of the opinion that they catered more to those who had more money than sense and anyway she was much more comfortable at the tea stall in the market.  All this might seem tedious now but the fact was that at an early age I developed a keen desire to be Upwardly Mobile even if I hadn’t much idea what that meant.

          Somehow the Department Store conveyed both style and glamour with its firmly designated areas, nightwear and underwear together in one almost welcoming space, women’s daywear adjacent, children and menswear separated by a journey in the terrifying lift perhaps even operated by a uniformed attendant who announced whether you were Going Up or Going Down just in case you were confused.  The magic started for me immediately upon entering the store, hopefully via astonishing revolving doors.   The unfamiliar and exotic fragrances emanating from ground floor perfumes and beauty items immediately transported me into a pleasantly parallel day-dream world where the possibility of a rooftop café was forever on the horizon.  Just as memorable, there might even be a bookshop hidden away in one of the corners where Enid Blyton story books, at that time still permitted, might be on sale for those children whose parents actually went in for buying books.   

          In those post-war years our serious purchases were invariably made at markets.  When she became interested in dress-making my mother always bought what she called Off Cuts from the fabric stall in Gravesend Market and then purchased the appropriate Simplicity pattern from the drapers in Northfleet High Street or Perry Street.   Nevertheless this didn’t stop her making a thorough examination of the fabrics and patterns in Bentalls.   By this time I was considered just old enough to be allowed to browse in the Children’s Books & Toys Department which I did very happily.   My worship of such shopping emporiums increased with each visit we made.

Little wonder that when I first went to work in London at nearly sixteen I spent a great deal of time savouring the delights of Oxford Street - Selfridges, Peter Robinson, Bourne & Hollingsworth, D H Evans and John Lewis.  The possibilities were breath taking.  Within just a few months I ventured further to Gamages of Holborn and The Army & Navy Stores in Victoria.   And somewhat belatedly I discovered Swan & Edgar at Piccadilly Circus.  In those early days I rarely made purchases and so I was very impressed when my cousin Connie, just a year older than me paid thirteen pounds for a pale blue raincoat at Gallery Lafayette in Regent Street without a great deal of accompanying drama.  

When tentatively stepping into bedsitter-land the fact that I was relatively close to the delights of Derry & Toms and Pontings and just a hop, skip and a jump from Harrods made the move from riverside North Kent seem enormously safe and secure.  Later with a move to Bayswater the proximity of Whiteleys of Queensway was comforting.  

Unsurprisingly as time progressed I was to deeply mourn the loss of the Department Stores and the disagreeable handover to the Age of the Shopping Mall.   It’s possible that I’ve never even tried to come to terms with the idea of Malls with their faceless, windowless thoroughfares and their food plazas where bright orange curry outlets sit dutifully alongside those offering dumplings or pizza and the same low key music plays in the background as you hurry with your tray to locate a table in the allotted space that offers a modicum of privacy.   Neither do I like their terrifying ability to ensure that it will be difficult for you to ever escape from their bland interiors by never providing proper Exit directions.

The Mall does of course offer elongated shopping hours together with endless parking bays whilst the Department Store of long ago might close its doors firmly at six pm leaving you stranded outside to struggle home by bus with your packages.   However, at the conclusion of shopping hours the soft interior lights would still glimmer and flicker invitingly and certainly enough to summon the would-be customer to hesitate for a moment and perhaps linger to examine what might be within.   Even a brief consideration of the window displays rarely let you down with their promise of what would be possible at 9am once the doors opened again.   Even if there was no purchase to be made there might at least be a café on the top floor where wait staff in uniform would take your order for afternoon tea.        

C o r o n a t i o n D a y

 

I remember Coronation Day 1953 very well indeed and that’s because it was my thirteenth birthday.   I was a teenager at last, it was a Tuesday and by rights we should have been at school but instead a Public Holiday had been declared, what my mother and the aunts called a Bank Holiday.      Twenty miles up river in London apparently it was raining but in our part of North Kent the sun shone, at least that’s how I remember it and what’s more a Street Party had been organised.  The Street Party was not the only unusual and exciting event because someone highly pro-active had also organised a Fancy Dress Parade and someone else was to judge a York Road, Shepherd Street & Surrounding Areas Talent Contest.

The lead up to the day seemed to involve endless conversation between my mother and her favourite sister about what had happened before the War when the now deceased King George VI had been forced to take on the burden of kingship because of his wayward brother and that American Hussy who had waltzed into his life and tempted him.   It was all reminiscent of Harry & Meghan eight decades later only not nearly as shocking because at least The Royals of the time had not been accused of Racism.   There seems to have been a lot more basic respect for Royalty back then and quite apart from that Racism didn’t feature in everyday conversation nearly as much as it does now. If we indulged in prejudice and bigotry we certainly didn’t realise it.   My Grandmother focussed more on the coronation of the previous Monarch, George V which was also held in June but way back in 1911 and followed hard on the heels of the Empire Festival at Crystal Palace.   She and her Edgar had joined the throngs lining the streets outside the Abbey together with Little Maggie and Nellie and Martha and Maudie, all waving flags.   Maudie was still a baby bless her heart but she was very knowing even then and she screamed blue murder until she got her own flag.  All of the little buggers dropped their flags when Edgar bought them toffee apples of course but then what else could you expect?  It was unclear as to whether there had been a street party back then or if in fact the family managed to get back to Maxim Road, Crayford to take part in it if there was.

There was no chance of us missing the York Road party all those years later because the day’s various activities had been cleverly staggered in order that none of us should miss a single moment of the fun if at all possible.    In fact the very first event was the Fancy Dress Parade and I was definitely going to take part as a Crinoline Lady.   My mother had always been overly fond of Crinoline Ladies and bought endless embroidery kits featuring them which became table cloths and cushions.    She had also become adept over the years at making costumes out of crepe paper and now I can see she harboured a strong creative streak which when I was young I failed to appreciate.    Using an old petticoat or similar suitable garment as the base, frill upon frill of pink and blue crepe were attached to great effect and in no time at all I emerged from number 28 looking for all the world like an extra in Gone With The Wind.   You can see why I felt sure I would win one of the prizes – jigsaw puzzles of the golden coach, but of course even back then the prizes went to those who had come as cardboard boxes or balls of wool, and that’s always been the case.   Anyway my poor mother was more disappointed than I was.

So we didn’t miss the street party and I even had time to change out of my crepe paper costume back into whatever else I was required to wear that day before attacking the fish paste sandwiches, lemon jellies and jam doughnuts that were piled up on the trestle tables in the road.   I don’t know where the tables had come from but Alan Bardoe said knowledgeably that they had been hired.  I had no real idea of what that meant at the time.   We did have to bring our own chairs, however.    During the party our photographs were taken many times and then we sang songs before dispersing, most of us towards the Talent Competition which was taking place outside The Prince Albert in Shepherd Street.  

It had inevitably been suggested that I enter the event singing Bless This House or even We’ll Meet Again but I did not have the confidence in my singing voice that my mother had.   Molly, who had a much better voice than I did, considered entering with a Doris Day song, favouring The Silvery Moon but changed her mind.   In the end it seemed that only the more determined and hardy souls among us or maybe just those with the pushiest mothers actually fronted up to display our talents on the day.

Rita Jenkins did a tap dance dressed as a Dutch doll and wearing one of her famous embroidered bonnets of which she seemed to have a great many.   In my opinion she was now becoming too old to emulate dolls of any description and in any case now I had reached the great age of thirteen I had stopped being jealous of her for being allowed dancing lessons in the first place - and I had been thirteen for a number of hours.  So I agreed with Molly when she observed that Rita had done quite well.  A girl with a great deal of confidence who was, her mother said, as keen as mustard on ballet, performed what seemed like a complicated ballet routine whilst an elderly relative played a piano accompaniment from inside the pub.  There wasn’t wholehearted approval of her because apparently she wasn’t local enough.    A small group from the Baptist Sunday School sang a rousing hymn and Betty Haddon sang Alice Blue Gown which she was always willing to sing given half a chance.   Little Elsie from Buckingham Road who was wheelchair bound was supposed to recite a poem about a mouse but she got an attack of nerves at the last minute and burst into tears instead.

As we watched Molly said that we should have performed a One Act Play because there were plenty to choose from that needed just two actors.    Although both of us at that time were keen on a future in acting, me in the London Theatre and she in Hollywood, I was quite glad that we had avoided it on this occasion.  Serious acting I felt was not going to earn total support in York Road and in any case I didn’t really know any one act plays for two performers and I doubted if Molly did either.  Later she said well if we couldn’t find one in the library we could have written one ourselves and I was even more doubtful.

There were a number of other hopeful contestants but most of them I have no memory of at all.   To my mind in any case the star of the show was most definitely Colin Bardoe, Alan’s twin, who had a good, strong singing voice and sang a song about dying in the desert under the Libyan sun which was very sad.  I can still remember him with his head held high and plenty of dramatic gestures.  I can’t actually recall if he did win the five shilling postal order but he certainly should have done.  As far as I recollect he didn't even have a pushy mother.   No matter what the neighbours thought of Colin, and back then his insistence on playing with the girls rather than the boys did provoke a certain amount of disapproval, he had a lively and engaging personality coupled with an ability most of us lacked.  Of all the contestants he is the one who still stands out vividly in memory for me.    

Of course by 1953 a number of our neighbours had already acquired television sets on the Never-Never and were watching the proceedings at Westminster from the comfort of their living rooms but mostly with the street doors open so they could exit with ease if something more exciting happened outside.   The more generous hearted among them invited a selection of the neighbours to join the viewing and some of the Best Front Rooms, normally only used at Christmas, were filled to bursting point with interested adults standing or perched on the sides of sofas and children crammed on the floor.

Our family was not to feature among those who could afford modern technology for some years to come and even Aunt Mag was not to reach that dizzy zenith until 1955 so I suggested to Molly, who was in the same situation, that we simply peer through windows from time to time which we did.  Meanwhile my little brother waited hopefully for Hedley Davis to invite him in because Hedley had told him the Davis family were definitely going to buy a TV set in time for the Coronation.   Whether they did or not I still don’t know but poor Bernard definitely wasn't invited in.

Death of a Queen

 

We were of course expecting the death.  After all, she was ninety six years old and couldn’t go on for ever.   Nevertheless it still came as something of a shock in the early hours when I was once again not sleeping and wondering how sensible it would be to simply get out of bed and let the day begin.   But I hesitated and listened to Kate Hawkesby on radio instead and felt unexpectedly saddened by the news.   I was still listening an hour or so later and was then strangely cheered at the unexpected emotion showed by Mike Hosking.

 I’m one of a diminishing group who can remember when Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary became Queen all those years ago, the death of her father George VI following hard on the heels of that of my own father.  At school that morning the blinds in our classroom were down and Sylvia Smith said it was because the King had died but that turned out to be wrong – it was because we were, rather excitingly, going to watch a film show about the mountains of Scotland and possibly Wales as well.   We learned that Ben Nevis was the highest.  

We had never actually seen the Queen in the flesh of course and never expected to; she was only visible via Pathe News Gazette playing before the main feature at local cinemas.   There was great excitement therefore when it was announced that this glamorous new Monarch would be touring our area of North Kent and the points where she might be best seen were listed.    Molly from number 31 decided that we must definitely not miss out and that the best view of her would definitely be from what we still called The Old Roman Road.   It was quite a walk from York Road and we set off early one Saturday morning in high spirits.   We had to wait for a considerable length of time at the roadside, still relatively rural at the time and I don’t remember hordes of others.   The motorcade slowed down as we were noticed waving and cheering fervently.  The young Queen looked directly at us and smiled broadly.   We were ecstatic of course, could hardly believe our good fortune.   The real life Queen had actually noticed US – Jean  and Molly, two insignificant twelve year olds from Northfleet!  When we got back to school a day or two later we found that we were definitely not the only ones that the sleek black vehicle had slowed for, not the only twelve year olds the dazzling new Sovereign had noticed and waved at.

As the months passed we became more and more accustomed to catching glimpses of Elizabeth the Second, not in the flesh sadly but on newsreels and we even persuaded ourselves that we were desperate to see films that under normal circumstances we might have definitely avoided – simply to see the young woman who had smiled and waved at us as her car moved slowly by on The Old Roman Road.

The luckier ones amongst us came from families who during that year became the proud owners of TV sets and they regaled us with reports of viewing her regularly on News At Six as she went about her Queenly business, cutting ribbons and making speeches.   We weren’t unduly envious because she hadn’t smiled directly at them had she?   We definitely felt we had an important connection with her and this feeling did not wear off for a long time.  

We began to read The Young Elizabethan magazine, available at the local library which had emerged around the time of her wedding to Prince Philip and which until the encounter on The Old Roman Road we had largely ignored.   It became a favourite because it ran competitions, published poems and puzzles and recommended new titles by writers like Noel Streatfield and Monica Edwards.  

All these memories seemed to engulf me earlier today and I began to realise how great a supporter I have become of a constitutional monarchy.   This is in no small part because of the strength, stamina and resilience shown over the years by Elizabeth Alexandra Mary who had never really wanted the job of being Queen – but did it anyway, and did it in an exemplary fashion.  

The Depositing of Ashes . . . . .

It had taken more than eighteen months to do something seemly, appropriate even with his human remains.   The pale wooden box containing the ashes, all that was left of him, had stayed on the rarely ever used cane tea trolley from the day they were delivered to me by Davis Funerals.   To be honest I had at first imagined I would find that situation quite macabre but as the months passed it was strangely comforting to have him there.   I could place my hand on the box and talk to him and wonder if he somewhere, somehow heard me.  In fact I developed a regular habit of speaking with him, often as I walked the streets of Parnell compliantly getting the daily exercise that was supposed to be good for my back.  Later I conversed with him in London and then I cried more than I had in Auckland because he should have been there, walking alongside me. 

It would be true to say that I did not deal with his death as well as I might have done and probably that was simply because in a disturbingly infantile manner I refused to believe that it had actually happened.   Somehow or other providence should have intervened like a good fairy at a story book christening ensuring that normal life be restored in all its predictable certainty.   But that wasn’t ever going to happen was it?  The B-cell Lymphoma did not allow for such an outcome and as a doctor’s wife over so many years I should have realised that very well, except that I didn’t.   So I withdrew into a mini-fortress, did not answer the telephone, and threw away the endless flowers that relentlessly and exasperatingly arrived day after day.  The neighbours, witnessing the latter piece of eccentricity gaped and I smiled and might have even wished them Good Morning.      

There was definitely not going to be a funeral.  He and I had at least discussed that and I told him it was never going to happen and disapproving friends and colleagues could think whatever they liked.  Perhaps I imagined that if there was no funeral – (oh the finality of such a thing) – possibly there had been no death.  He elicited a promise that I would at least put a notice in the New Zealand Herald and I agreed that I would.   And then he asked me what I would do with his remains.   Ideally, he said, and with only slight hesitation, and only if I felt able to do so, he wished for his ashes to be scattered in the South Island, in Oamaru, perhaps Dunedin and at Whitechapel by the Arrow River – and if I could face it, some in London because it was a place that held many precious memories.    He told me he realised I might find it very testing to make any promise in this respect and so I didn’t.   He understood me well of course after so many years.

He slipped from life without too much kerfuffle, grateful for the morphine that gave some respite from what he was by that stage calling his Galaxy of Pain.   And I withdrew from life also for the most part, avoiding human contact where possible, crying torrents of tears, throwing flowers away and watching Coronation Street where Leanne’s little boy, Oliver, was struggling with a life-threatening illness, a story line that at the time seemed comforting.     A modicum of solace also came from those who also coped with the death of someone greatly loved but I was astonished to feel fury and resentment at others whose nearest and dearest were still living.  This I concluded was because, as I had long suspected, I was not a very nice person; no surprises there then. 

He had died on a Sunday morning in October 2020, leaving me emotionally stranded, astonished that it had actually happened.   Several people said I would feel a little better in six months but in April 2021 I felt the same, missing him as fiercely as ever, still weeping copious tears on a regular basis, still avoiding social contact as much as possible.   The people I agreed to see and speak with were very few and I used every possible excuse I could dream up not to attend groups I had somehow or other been cajoled into joining - even the Zoom meetings.  I became eternally grateful for Covid lockdowns because month after month I was most at ease when completely alone except for laptop, Ipad and Patrick’s collection of CDs that for a number of years had been left in my care.    The world’s greatest violinists were eternally helpful, the musical genius of Menuhin, Heifetz, Hassid, Huberman, Kreisler and Ricci was infinitely sustaining.   Outside my cocoon of misery normal life continued to jog along of course but after eighteen months for me it was still mostly long dead violinists and the ashes on the cane trolley.  

It was Sinead who urged me to consider some positive action as far as a farewell to her father was concerned.   It was time to do so she thought, and she would come from London and give help and direction.   We would go to the South Island and visit all the places that had been important to him, and then go on to London and do the same.   It might turn out to be difficult but we could be certain he would be proud of us.   And so it was agreed.

In the end three of us set off South early in May 2022.   Patrick joined us and we were in good spirits, keen to rediscover favoured and significant places in Dunedin and Oamaru once more and perhaps with just a little difficulty find the site of Whitechapel on the Arrow River where the previously Jewish Harrises, confusingly each generation possessed of the name Samuel Lewis or Lewis Samuel, ditched their former customs and traditions and became Anglican.   We had been told that this dismissal of heritage was not particularly unusual at that time and we were content to believe what we were told.  

The mission was seamlessly accomplished and by the last week in May we were already deep in plans for a return to London, though sadly without Patrick who was unable to extricate himself from his workload.   Sinead and I would go together and I was to stay for three months and become re-acquainted with all that I had left behind me in my favourite city nearly five decades previously.  

And it wasn’t just going to be a trip down Memory Lane because my daughter was eager to show me her new house, ideally situated in an area of Hackney called De Beauvoir Town in honour of Richard de Beauvoir who in 1640 bought up a large amount of local farmland.  Further down the track in the nineteenth century a keen descendent began to build houses on the land which was fortunate for women like Sinead, intent upon becoming owners of acceptably priced Victorian properties.  We both agreed that her father would have been extraordinarily proud of her and perhaps more than a little bit envious because his own ambition had been to become a London property owner.  The closest he came to fulfilling the dream was the acquisition we made together of a tiny basement flat in Cloudesley Square, Barnesbury and even then financial constraints forced us to sell it within a year.   

Now in mid 2022 it was from the house in De Beauvoir Town that I set out again and again on journeys of re-discovery.    And once more, somewhat predictably, I demonstrated to myself that I was still unable to come to terms with the death of the man I had been married to for forty-eight years.   Again I walked the streets in tears and conversed with him, fervently wishing that the last year of his life could have been lived with less pain.  And on a daily basis I berated the son who had caused us so much misery by ignoring the terminal illness and then the death of the father who had loved him so much -  and I lauded and was thankful for the son and daughter who demonstrated on a daily basis their deep regard, their love and their care and concern.

Over those three months we made pilgrimages to his favourite pubs, in total forty such excursions and from time to time we wondered which had been our own favourites, in finality deciding upon The Old Mitre, The Princess Louise, The Cittie of York, The Black Friar, The Mayflower and The Barley Mow.    And of course we went to the restaurant in Maiden Lane that had meant so much to both of us – Rules.   In fact, ignoring the expense, we went there twice.   

I was in the final weeks of my visit when we at last spoke of the London scattering of ashes.   We walked at dusk to the Holy Trinity Church in Cloudesley Square, comfortably bounded on all sides by Georgian houses where Sinead had made a ritual visit at the time of his death armed with candles and melancholy memories.  And as previously she determinedly provided a link with Patrick in Auckland via her phone and the wonders of modern technology.   This final dissemination felt like completely losing him and it was gruelling though I was comforted by Sinead’s assertion that we had now created a physical place where it was possible to stop by and reminisce about his life and that part of him would always be there.

Gordon James Harris, an ordinary man, came into our lives at a time when he was sorely needed, when I was in dire need of someone to depend upon and Patrick just four years old, longed for a father.  He more than fulfilled all our hopes and expectations.  He was an exemplary husband and father and became dearly loved and greatly respected.   His daughter’s resolve, her relentless organisational skills have allowed us to ensure that his mortal remains have been deposited with certainty in the places he would have most wanted to be.

A week or two ago when I returned to New Zealand I was oddly cheered to see that the pale wooden box that had once contained his ashes was still in place on the rarely used cane tea trolley.  I can still reach out and speak with him at will.