Tower Hamlets Adverts from 1967
February 16, 2024
Stefan Dickers, Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, kindly sent me these wonderful advertisements from a History of Tower Hamlets produced by the council in 1967 and I could not resist showing them to you. Half a century later, it is poignant to contemplate these proud images of manufacturing and long-established local businesses which are now all gone.
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Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You might also like to take a look at
Adverts from the Jewish East End
Adverts from Stepney Borough Guide
5 Responses
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Like to just say Samuels the stonemason in Sidney st was where Churchill took shelter during the siege of Sidney st .
Fascinating memories. The name Allen and Hanburys seems familiar and I don’t know why. Maybe a relative worked there? Dad was based on Hackney Road but worked all over the East End as a turncock for the Metropolitan Water Board. He went to Charringtons to buy a pair of small Burlington ware Toby jugs. I remember asking him where they came from. Dad loved junk shops and tried to repair old, valve-based TV sets and radios. I say tried because, as valves were replaced by smaller semi-conductor based transistors, the former became more scarce – hence trawling for used products. Saturday trips to visit my grandmother were punctuated by detours to secondhand shops all over the East End. The favourite was one called, by us at least, simply Junks. I think it was in Leytonstone. Dad taught me everything he knew about electronics but his knowledge petered out when it became digital and I began trying to teach him.
Another regular stopover was at the Green Shield Stamps shop in Leytonstone. This was preceded by industrial scale licking and sticking by my sister and I, to complete the books to meet the necessary tariff for some swish Danish stainless steel candle holders ( which I still have). I don’t think Mum and Dad ever used them.
The ad for sewing machinists, £20 plus bonus after 6 months must have been a fortune back then. My mother in law was a machinist working from home in East Ham doing piecework, she made blouses and dresses supplied to M and S and C and A but earned a pittance in comparison.
Compare and contrast…..
1967.
Birth control.
Homosexuality legalized.
Cheap beer.
Cheap fags.
Hope.
A decent government that actually did things for the working class.
2024…….
Zilch.
Allen and Hanbury’s blackcurrant throat pastilles are sold under the name Grether’s Pastilles here in Switzerland, you can buy them in bags or the old fashioned patterned tins. My husband is never without a supply.