Illustration: Lili Wharfe
Husbands are not weeping at the demise of Debenhams. They think nothing of hitting the Amazon button for all their needs - from sacks of dishwasher salt to flagons of maple syrup. And it’s not just the bulk they relish. Equally lured by the difficultly to track down items - if they can find a serial code, that German glass fridge shelf can we with them tomorrow. Who can compete with the Bezos Behemoth? My husband has even taken to buying his jeans from Amazon - what fresh nonsense is this? Jeans are to be tried on in their every which way of denim hue, size, length and leg width numbering 64 to the power of 3.
Neither are they lamenting the loss of Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins or Miss Selfridge - all shrines visited by generations of girls on Saturday afternoon pilgrimages. They bat not an eye at Burtons’ quietus. If they hate shopping with their wives they hate shopping for themselves even more. My brother prided himself on his annual shop to the Harrods’ sale in which he forecast all his shopping needs both business and pleasure for the coming year.
But I am not citing the modern husband - who have long since avoided the ‘trip to town’ and are now seen cycling of a Saturday afternoon. Though I still see the odd man adrift in the lingerie section of Marks, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the coffee shop, they are a rare anachronism in beige. Like crimpolene.
Not so my for my father who dutifully and it should be said uncomplainingly held my mother’s incredibly heavy sheepskin coat outside the blue curtains of the Debenhams cubicle, trying to look manly astride a pink draylon stool, for their whole married life. No mean feat what with the coat, and depending when in the shopping itinerary Debenhams featured, the many bags he had to keep an eye on. Occasionally, he would daringly read the paper whilst also keeping an eye on the clock with a view to kick off times. Even he needed an endgame.
Trips to town were what you did on Saturdays along with fish and chips for lunch and checking the football scores on Grandstand.
The pre-cursor to Internet shopping was mail order which never really took off until Johnnie Boden came along. It was always viewed as something of a gamble in my house. Would they take it back? The only things that arrived via the post were Christmas cards from the Webb Ivory Catalogue, thermals from Damart and occasionally something from the Kays catalogue which indubitably was something of a disappointment.
No, if it needed buying then you jolly well needed to go and buy it and that meant ‘going to town’ or ‘up town’ as good Gloucester folk would say. I remember clearly my father swinging a gallon tin of white emulsion with a 10ft fluorescent light tube under his arm. Homebase et al was a distant dream.
Trips to town were sandwiched with an initial visit to WH Smith – we seemed to need to go to Smiths every weekend to replenish our stationery supplies – of course Smiths sold so much more – including records (miraculously they still do!) and ending with Marks which you always left to last because of the prescient need to get prawn cocktails and cream cakes in the fridge. Meanwhile there would be a visit to the Victorian main post office where one could order foreign currency, buy a dog licence, or renew your road tax. Foreshadowing selfies, this is where you would pile into the photo booth with your friends and take a madcap picture– the anticipation whilst you waited for it to pop out of the chute was somehow magically thrilling in Gloucester on a Saturday afternoon.
There would be ‘I’m just going to pop to … maybe The Edinburgh Woollen Mill which you would always give the benefit of the doubt, hoping there might be a V-neck Shetland sweater that would catch your eye. There never was and you always forgot the overpowering smell of sheep’s wool which instigated a swift exit. We might try on shoes in Saxone or Freeman Hardy and Willis. No one, NO ONE ever bought shoes without trying them on - that would be asking for bunions.
Whilst all the time we skirted the main event - Debenhams: the mothership, Gloucester’s only department store. Still called ‘The Bon’ by my mother due to its previous incarnation as The Bon Marché which always sounded so chic given its juxtaposition with Gloucester. The citadel sat in all its glory in the middle of King’s Square offset by rather exotic fountains with something of the son et lumière about them and a scene of perennial humiliation for me as I once skipped rather too confidently across the stepping stones.
You could enter The Bon from four – FOUR different entrances - the main one of which would usher you straight into Perfumery where the Queen of the Beauty Hall, Lily Green, would reign resplendent, crowned with her impenetrable Elnett swooshed hair and face daubed with DoubleWear foundation. Her lilting Welsh tones would beckon my mother forth like a siren onto the rocks of the Estée Lauder counter inevitably resulting in a purchase of Swiss Performance Cream.
You could happily spend a whole afternoon going from Sporting Goods in the basement through to Umbrellas, Scarves and Gloves - seemingly incongruously, but maybe wisely, mixed in with Men’s Suits on the ground floor, then up to Haberdashery and School Uniform culminating in the café on the top floor. Debenhams was the place where I saw Father Christmas, where I got my ears pierced, where I had my first Saturday job – in China – dusting the shelves of Royal Doulton with my friend Emma on Typewriters - yes a whole department devoted to typewriters. Emma knew the pros and cons of the Olivetti versus the Smith Corona inside out. When you were on the till (one on the till, one packing) it would be non-stop and invariably you always had a huge queue when your receipt roller ran out. Debenhams gave me my first job. My first wages. I shall miss it.
So when the day finally arrived and I was allowed to go to town on my own - well actually with Emma we rode the 507 bus as if we were off to the Champs Elysées. We would be wearing legwarmers, dungarees or ra ra skirts - maybe all three. Most of the journey was spent worrying when to press the bell - not wanting to leave it too late or you would end up in the bus station. Going to town was a trip. A place where you might glimpse boys from the Cathedral school after their Saturday schooling. It was where you went on New Year’s Eve. It was where the night clubs were. Town was other. A taste of the world that lay beyond home.
So Emma and I, innocent of the scourge of micro plastics, would swing our clutch of carrier bags with impunity - each symbolising a triumph, a sacred find in the archaeological trove of town. I remember buying my first piece of make-up in Boots: Bourjois blusher - rosette brune Emma had an elder sister Jane so knew all about make-up. I was a grown up - I can still smell it.
The joy of shopping is serendipity - finding the pink puffed sleeve blouse in Primark moments before closing time. That top became a wardrobe legend and was my go to top for sixth form discos. There is no happenstance on the Internet, no joy of finding the top and in your size after a forensic search through the rails. Some days you came home with successful haul other days with nothing and that is its joy – it’s not meant to be easy. Online you can find anything you want – you’re only worry it might be sold out – but there is always another website. There is no hunt, no happenstance it’s all Add To Bag.
So what for our poor daughters?
I am aware of the thing that is ‘the shopping haul’ - when girls make a video of the stuff they have bought. I saw my goddaughter do one - I texted her mother - what, what, WHY? Clearly the need for the changing room joy - of coming out and showing your friends - thumbs up, thumbs down? Take it off or get it? But IT'S NOT THE SAME BY A LONG CHALK.
When we finally emerge from the cocoon of lockdown, blinking in the light and make a tentative foray to town - what will we find? Will our beloved high street resemble a scene from some post- apocalyptic retail Western, with shop signs swinging eerily in the wind and plastic bag tumbleweed scudding by?
Will I have to watch episodes of Dickensian to inject myself with the heady nostalgia of frosted mullion glassed windows where goods glow with an aura of want for my shopping fix? I really, really hope not – it is too sad to contemplate.
Michael and I will never ever read the same book. We both read the New Yorker that’s as close as it will ever get. Good read thanks
Thanks Lizzie, enjoyed reading that on a freezing Monday morning! I know, so sad some of these shops closing. I remember my mum taking us twice a year to Watford town centre to get our winter or summer wardrobe from C&A and then having lunch on the top floor of BHS with the treat of cherryade! Then teenage years spent roaming the high street on a Saturday and always halving the cost of anything when I got home and mum asked as she'd still say she could have run up something better for half the price! She used to make her own dress when invited to a party! Then as a student with you, Bin and Kate searching out the secondhand vintage shops. And then my adult shopping trips enjoying the independent shops and cafes in the North Laines of Brighton. Although I find it harder to shop for myself now, I do miss browsing and mooching, and find it even harder to shop online for clothes as I need to see and FEEL them as well as try on as I have no idea what size I am these days!? Funnily enough I've just cleared out a load of my old clothes before moving, finally accepting that I will never fit into them again, but Im loathed to put my favourite vintage pieces in the recycling bins - so well made and so many memories. I would take them to a vintage or charity shop but none are open! Annalise scoffs at most trips to the shops, preferring to buy secondhand on ebay. Things are definitely changing as I guess they always have. Sorry for such a long post!