Shops
Before Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Cafe Nero, Plymouth had its own coffee houses and tea shops, the most well known of them being Genoni and Goodbody.
When we prepared this next poster, Goulds were being run as a family business. The following year, Goulds reduced the size of their shop by leasing the left hand area which was to be used as a coffee shop.
Then the family sold the remaining business to a company who were running other surplus stores in the UK. That company kept the name of the shop as Goulds. However at the start of this year the business finally stopped trading so sadly it joins many other well known shops and stores who have disappeared from our city centre.
Next up, another well-known Plymouth store that was finally taken over by Debenhams in 1964, John Yeo.
We now come to the shops of Plymouth, some of which still survive, just, whilst others are a distant memory. Today a store which many of us still call Dingles even though it was taken over by House of Fraser nearly 50 years ago.
The final poster of our Commercial Plymouth exhibition puts the spotlight on a business that has been serving the people of Plymouth and Saltash with a favourite dish, fish and chips, for over 100 years, Perillas.
Pharmacies have changed from the days when everything was hand-written and the pharmacist had to try to decipher what the doctor had written on the prescription. This poster was prepared by Sylvia Greaves whose father, James Trice, was a pharmacist.
Today's poster celebrates the rise of the Co-operative movement in Plymouth.
Our next store disappeared from the town centre many years ago. Once described as the Harrods of the South West, Pophams was eventually taken over by Dingles. People who worked there have described it as like working in "Grace Brothers" from the TV Show "Are You Being Served".
When Plymouth City Centre was being rebuilt after the Second World War, the name of Spooners was prominent on Royal Parade and New George Street.
What many did not know was that Spooners had been acquired by Debenhams as far back as 1926 but it was not until 1971 that the name appeared on the storefront.
How much longer the store will continue to trade in Plymouth, or indeed in the rest of the UK, is the subject of much speculation.